University 'snub over Bodleian move'

The historic library is to shift millions of its books to an industrial estate on the edge of Swindon, a decision that will deliver a boost to the recession-hit Wiltshire town.

But the announcement means Oxford will miss out on jobs created by the storage centre, which will initially hold eight million volumes. And the library is also facing criticism on environmental grounds, with books wanted by readers in Oxford having to be carried on a 56-mile round trip by road.

The University of Oxford was last year thwarted by the city council in its plans to build a £28m book depository on the Osney Mead industrial estate, Oxford, after a long planning dispute. It has now abandoned the long search for a local site, saying it could find nowhere suitable either in Oxford or the rest of the county.

The university said the purchase of the site in Wiltshire would clear the way for a £75.6m plan to refurbish the New Bodleian Building on Broad Street.

A spokesman for the Bodleian said: “Not only will the purchase enable the Bodleian refurbishment to move ahead, but it will bring industry to Swindon, a town that has suffered greatly during the recession.”

The university’s original plans to build a depository at Osney Mead were opposed by the Oxford Preservation Trust and other campaigners, who said the building would damage views of Oxford’s skyline. The original plans were also said to increase the risk of flooding.

John Tanner, city council cabinet member for a cleaner greener Oxford, said: “It is a great pity if our planning decision has pushed Oxford’s Bodleian Library to Swindon. It will not do much for book retrieval or the carbon footprint. I have nothing against Swindon. But the Bodleian Library, Swindon, does not have the same ring as the Bodleian, Oxford.”

Craig Simmons, the leader of the green group on Oxford City Council, said: “It is good that the Bodleian was not allowed to build on a floodplain at Osney Mead. But there were other places in Oxford where they could have gone. The reason they haven’t is nothing to do with lack of space. They were looking for a cheaper site.

“It is disappointing. It means that more traffic will be added to the roads. I hope they will seek to minimize that by storing books locally, where possible.”

The Osney Mead proposal was eventually dismissed by a planning inspector who ruled that the depository should not be allowed to “undermine the character of the city, which is a fundamental asset to the university”.

Both city councillors said that lessons should be learnt from the long Boldeian saga, with a new look taken at the way planning applications from large institutions were dealt with. Mr Simmons said: “There is a need for more master planning and for the city to engage in a proper dialogue with the university, rather than applications coming out of the blue.”

Dr Sarah Thomas, head of the Bodleian, said the university had not been able to risk a second lengthy planning battle over the Bodleian depository.

She said: “We needed a site that was capable of being expanded and we were looking for somewhere that already had planning permission. We felt we couldn’t spend more time looking and being uncertain about the eventual outcome.

“We had pretty well scoured the whole of Oxfordshire. We felt we knew about all the sites that people had suggested locally. With the purchase of this site, we anticipate that the new storage facility will become operational in 2010.”

But she admitted that the price of land had also been a factor.

The books will be moved to Swindon from the New Bodleian Library, freeing up space to create a major visitor attraction there.

Dr Thomas said the books stored at Swindon would be predominantly low-demand items, many of which were available electronically.

She said there would only be two deliveries a day to Oxford, significantly fewer than the 12 daily van journeys that would have carried books from Osney Mead. She said the move to Swindon would not result in redundancies in Oxford.