The ‘Chaucer Fields’ Proposal

UCU Meeting

May 2012

What is local people’s concern?

• NOT an objection to more student accommodation on campus

• NOT necessarily an objection to the building of a conference centre on an appropriate site

• BUT a deep concern about development on this particular site

What would be lost

What would be lost

What would be lost

What would be lost

What would replace it

Reasons against development on the southern slopes

• A rich historical and natural landscape – a ‘mosaic environment’

• Green space which is a valued amenity

• Designated as ‘Open Space’ in the Local Plan, in an Area of High Landscape Value

• Irreplaceable views across the fields to the Cathedral and World Heritage Site

• The University’s reputation locally

The fields as heritage – the 1706 map

Alternative sites?

• YES

• For example

• The land between the Business Innovation Centre and the new Keynes accommodation

• The ‘central woodlands’

Alternative sites?

A second local concern

• An inevitable increase in noise and disturbance for local residents

• Close proximity of seven accommodation blocks to local housing

• Increase in disturbance from night-time/early morning transit between town and campus

Late-night disturbance

Would the development decrease the number of HMOs locally?

• NO

• All the evidence indicates that student halls of residence act as a hub which attracts HMOs to the area.

• Any decrease in the number of HMOs would be only in more outlying areas of Canterbury where concentration is not a problem anyway.