Ruskin College’s move to Headington
Headington is becoming the home of another educational institution, Ruskin College, which sold its old site in Walton Street to Exeter College for £7m on 17 March 2010 and will move up to the large Ruskin Hall/Stoke site in Old Headington in September 2012.
Ruskin College started to develop the Headington site in the spring of 2010. The city council’s Strategic Development Control Committee approved seven of its planning applications:
- 09/00546/LBD:
Listed Building Consent for alterations including demolition of late 19th/ early 20th C. internal servants’ stair, 1960s Tawney Hall (Refectory wing and kitchens) and small-scale rear late 19th/ early 20th C. additions.
Alterations and extension on 4 levels for academic block. The Rookery.
Formation of new gated pedestrian entrance in south boundary wall. The Walled Garden. - 09/00547/FUL:
Alterations and extension on 4 levels of The Rookery to provide academic accommodation and ancillary facilities. Associated hard and soft landscaping and cycle parking provision. Erection of smoking canopy, gazebo, fire pit, water tank and engineering operations to create steps and shallow pools/pond, regrading of land and creation of hard surface footpaths within fields to North of site.
Formation of new gated pedestrian entrance in south boundary wall. The Walled Garden. - 09/00548/FUL: Replacement sub-station.
- 09/00633/CAC: Conservation Area Consent for demolition of Bowen Building.
- 09/00634/FUL: Erection of 4-storey building to provide student accommodation. Cycle parking. Associated hard and soft landscaping.
- 09/00635/CAC: Conservation Area Consent for demolition of the Bowerman Building.
- 09/00636/FUL: Erection of student accommodation on 2 and 3 storeys. Cycle parking. Associated hard and soft landscaping.
The eighth plan (for “Installation of car parking areas to provide 38 car parking spaces”) (09/00549/FUL) was rejected on 21 July 2009, but Ruskin won its appeal against this decision.
The plans include a new library (to be named after former Prime Minister Jim Callaghan) and a new teaching area next to the Rookery. Some buildings (including Bowen House and the Bowerman Building) will be demolished and replaced by new accommodation.
In 2010 Ruskin College submitted another planning application which was approved:
- 1000613/LBD: Listed Building Consent. Alterations and extensions involving demolition of internal stairs, refectory wing and kitchens. Erection of academic and ancillary facilities on 4 levels.
Ruskin was granted planning permission (with conditions) by the Area Committee on 17 June 2008 (07/02867/FUL) to remove the temporary building housing the children’s nursery plus other structures within the walled garden, and to erect a free-standing dining hall, together with hard and soft landscaping works and an ornamental pond. [In the event, however, the walled garden was restored as a garden.]
The original Masterplan (07/02213/CONSLT) was welcomed by the Area Committee meeting on 22 January 2009, but councillors felt that Dunstan Road should remain the main access point to the site, rather than Stoke Place.
The students of Ruskin College were not, however, pleased to learn that the old building in Oxford would close, and on 27 February 2008 they protested outside Ruskin Hall in Old Headington.
Press articles
- Oxford Mail, 21 April 2012: “College ready to move on”
- Oxford Mail, 25 March 2011: “Ruskin College signs £5million deal for new building”
- Oxford Mail, 17 September 2009: “Ruskin plan scaled down”
- Oxford Mail, 5 August 2009:“Ruskin College gets go-ahead for £20m redevelopment”
- Oxford Times, 14 March 2009: “A very Ruskin rumpus”
- Oxford Mail, 22 February 2008: “Students picket college campus”
- Oxford Mail, 24 January 2008: “Ruskin move backed”
- Oxford Mail, 11 January 2007: “Ruskin seeks move to green fields”
