What’s really going on at the University of Gloucestershire
When an anchor institution gets a Royal visit is looks good, as it did for the University of Gloucestershire’s city campus on Friday, but does it divert eyes from what’s really going on?
Dear Readers,
Welcome to the first email edition of The Raikes Journal for the week. We could have gone big on the news that a £270-million-plus investment is planned for Gloucestershire that will create a major new base for the Military’s cyber-focused force.
But we’ve just included that as one of the stories bellow. You can read the whole tale, courtesy of Carmelo Garcia, via the link.
Instead we went big on a deep dive into just what is going on at the University of Gloucestershire, and how it’s faring in what are some of the toughest time in living memory for universities.
Just as the MoD’s plans for its cyber base near Cirencester claim they will be a major economic catalyst for the county, so to is the university. But of late it’s been shedding staff, selling land and buildings and a closer look at its new City Campus reveals a £79 million investment that’s less that half full.
Don’t get the wrong idea though, there’s this is one of the most counterintuitive stories we’ve tackled of late.
If you can spare a few minutes to complete a survey too, I would really appreciate it. really, really apprentice it! We’ve teamed up with the Speak Easy Consultancy Ltd to help it understand why we appear to be getting more and more reticent to have those difficult conversations - be that with our staff, our bosses, strangers, our loved ones or our friends. Just about everyone it seems.
We hope to be party to its findings, and even its solutions, and plan to share them right here. Your input is anonymous, but if you have any thoughts to share, please do get in touch.
The link is below.
Best regards,
Andrew Merrell (editor).
Survey: How to have those difficult conversations
Are we really getting worse at conversations that count? In the opinion of the Speak Easy Consultancy Ltd, which is part-run by a long-term supporter of The Raikes Journal, “people seem less inclined to take conversational risks. Yet those risks are the one that lead to successes, missteps and consequential learning”.
Those might be conversations with staff, with bosses, with fellow board members, with family, friends, loved-ones, partners, authority or colleagues. Its produced a survey to seek to find out why and to identify some learning opportunities to help us all do better.
Are we deskilling, more afraid, less confident, more risk averse, less able, scared of offending, put off by the consequences, or something else? If you can take a few minutes to take on the survey we would really appreciate it. With a bit of luck, Speak Easy Consultancy Ltd will then share the results back with us so we can share with you. It should make for a fascinating follow-up article.
To find the survey, visit Conversation Research.
Briefing notes…
💻🪖 £279m Gloucestershire barracks for MoD’s cyber division: An investment of £279 million has been announced that will create a new home for the Army’s cyber regiment in Gloucestershire. The project for the Duke of Gloucester Barracks near Cirencester will see the military’s cyber-focused personnel benefit from new modern accommodation and specialist training facilities. The multi-million contract, signed on January 15, will see the creation of specialist modern facilities for 13 Signal Regiment at South Cerney with 248 single living accommodation rooms as well as 30 homes for service personnel with families, 92 jobs and 32 apprenticeships. More here.
📈 Top 100: B Corp retail giant on track for £100 million turnover: ProCook, the Gloucestershire-headquartered online and in-store kitchenware retailer, says it is confident of delivering a strong full-year performance. The Gloucester-based business has revealed it delivered a record peak-season performance and outperformed the market over the Christmas period. It means that ProCook has now delivered nine consecutive quarters of retail growth, and the company believes there is more to come. Lee Tappenden, the firm’s chief executive officer, said ProCook was on target to achieve 100 UK retail stores, £100m revenue and 10 per cent operating profit margin.
📈 Business activity continued to increase across the South West private sector in December, with a notable increase in new work at the end of the year. NatWest’s South West Business Activity Index measures changes in the region’s output of goods and services signalled a moderate expansion of activity across the region, and extended the current period of growth to one year. Sales grew at the second-fastest rate in over a year.
Diary dates…
Tuesday
The PFS Bristol & Cheltenham is due to stage Understanding your business succession journey at Tortworth Court, Bristol. 9am to 2pm. For senior leaders seeking financial advice this could be for you. More here.
Wednesday
Not sure where to begin? Find your fastest route to growth. Gill Smith, of The Business Kitchen, is due to lead this seminar at The Growth Hub, Cirencester. From 10am to 11.30am. More here.
Thursday
Cheltenham Chamber is inviting members to plug into an online session staged by Business West looking at AI for business. From 9.30am to 11am. More here.
A Gloucestershire branch of networking group 9others is due to stage a meal for its members in Cheltenham from 6.30pm to 9.30pm. More here.
Friday
Gloucester Rugby v Bath Rugby at Kingsholm. KO 9.45pm.
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Future thinking…
Randall & Payne’s Xero Advice Clinic. From 9am to 4.30pm on Monday 26 January. Free advice from a Xero expert who can show you how to get the most from the accounting software. More here.
Real Estate unlocked: Dispute Resolution seminar. We’re flagging this one well-ahead of its start-date. On 3 February at 3.45pm to 5.30pm the team from Willans, one of the Founding Partners of Raikes, will deliver the second in a series covering everything from lease terms to litigation. Insight and networking opportunities. More here.
What’s really going on at the University of Gloucestershire
When an anchor institution gets a Royal visit is looks good, as it did for the University of Gloucestershire’s city campus on Friday, but does it divert eyes from what’s really going on?
By Andrew Merrell.
A Royal visit to open the University of Gloucestershire’s new £70m city campus has helped celebrate an investment already transforming Gloucester – but a deeper dive into the institution is much more revealing.
There seems little doubt the smart, repurposed former Debenhams building is already having a significant impact, not least by making the city’s library its ground floor tenant.
Along with the additional footfall that’s resulted – from students to thousands of library users – it is altering the demographic and the perceptions of a city long crying out for change for so long.
Princess Anne’s visit on Friday (16 January) to officially open the building, a move that would have verged on preposterous a few years ago, not only drew dignitaries from across Gloucestershire, it felt right.
Dame Clare Marchant, the university’s vice chancellor, said: “To have so many people come to celebrate something in the heart of Gloucester was brilliant.
“We wanted this space to be about community as well as education, and with the library here too, we think we’re beginning to see that happen.”
Apparently four weeks after the library opened, footfall through its doors was already in the tens of thousands.
But the library wasn’t part of the original plan. In fact, very little of what’s happening was part of the original plan.
This is a project inherited by Marchant from her predecessor, Stephen Marston, which has overcome delays – not least from the discovery of the remains of 200 mediaeval former residents buried beneath it - and a near doubling of costs to £79 million.
It’s been a major challenge the university’s leadership team has had to manage while also negotiating possibly the toughest time for universities in living memory, not least because their main source of income – student fees – have been frozen since 2017.
In the last two years mainstream and financial media have warned of universities going bankrupt and an “irreversible decline”.
In that context it would be easy to take a different view of the university’s progress with its city campus, and wonder if it took on an expensive project it really didn’t need. The library takes up half of the downstairs space of the building. Its top two floors remain empty, meaning only one full floor is dedicated to the university itself.
Over in Cheltenham, it recently sold off its 4.69-acre Hardwick Campus in St Paul’s Road, property on its flagship Park Campus, and its just-published annual accounts revealing it’s cut staff numbers from 884 to 912.
But if you look at the direction of travel, the cup actually feels more than half full – not half empty.
The merging of the creative courses from the Hardwick Campus onto its Park Campus, alongside the likes of Cyber, and the narrative around how that creates a more vibrant, dynamic working environment for students feels right.
Even its shelving of plans to build a new cyber centre for its students on the site, investing instead in a complete fitout of an existing building seems to have worked, creating a new, modern space for students. And it invested in developing its working relationships with the county’s powerful Cheltenham-based, 5,000-strong cyber-focus networking group, CyNam.
When it has had to think on its feet and find solutions, it has done so, and it has not been afraid to change tack to keep up with fast-changing times. It’s not seen the solutions as spend, spend, spend either.
“I am commercially minded,” said Marchant, the former CEO of the Universities and Colleges Admissions Service, when I asked her if she knew she processed the entrepreneurial flair we’ve arguably seen so far.
When I start to suggest she was dealt a pretty tough hand when she took the job, she quickly beats me to finishing the sentence, jokingly expanding that out to ‘deck of cards’ instead.
“It is not just about being commercial. You need to be able to make that work.
“You need to balance that (being entrepreneurial and making business decisions) with being able to work with people.
“You need to look after your staff and your students and be able to get on with people. They are what’s important.
“I have had to make some difficult decisions. When you are having to let people go, you have to treat them right. They have families too, mortgages, bills to pay, friends who still work here, and you have to remember that.”
London Economics concluded that UK universities impacted the UK economy by £158 million. When combined with other data around the benefit of international students the total impact across the UK was £265 billion. And that was back in 2024.
When they thrive, the nation does better.
That entrepreneurial flair shown by Marchant and her team will soon impact the Debenhams building too. Intended as a hotbed for nurse training, that was ideas was shelved as funding was cut by central Government, but it now looks like its second floor will become a major new dental practice and training school for the next generation of dental health practitioners.
A statement from the university given to Raikes said: “While we are currently only at an early planning stage in this project, our new dental hub, in partnership with NHS Gloucestershire Integrated Care Board, at City Campus would signal the future launch of new dental care professional courses for University of Gloucestershire and an expansion of our existing Health and Science courses.
“Initially, the first new course would be in dental hygiene, and potentially dental therapy in due course.
“The university wants to ensure that it continues to offer a wide portfolio of courses that are attractive to students. These new dental care professional courses would have good employment prospects for our students whilst also addressing a regional workforce skills shortage.”
When we talked to Marchant she revealed the deal was actually much further on than the comments above might make it sound.
Ruth Dooley, a senior partner at Hazlewoods accountants, was at the grand opening of the new City Campus by Princess Anne.
Dooley is also a council member of the University of Gloucestershire, which oversees academic and financial policy, institutional governance, and long-term planning.
“The university has one of the highest employment rates for student graduates,” said Dooley, when I asked why it is so important for the county that it thrives.
“And now it is right here, in the heart of the community in the middle of Gloucester. That can only be good for the county.
“Anyone can just come in and use the library here. It’s showing everyone that education can be accessible and hopefully making them think they can be part of that.”
Alex McIntyre, the city’s MP, credited the university with partnership working he said was helping create change and aspirations for those who live in the city.
Emily Gibbon, the manager of Gloucester BID, which represents the city’s businesses, said the new-look building spoke volumes about the journey of reinvention the city was on.
The university’s just-published set of accounts reveal just how tough things are financially.
Income fell from £87.8 million to £83.7m in the year to 31 July 2025, some of that from a fall in the amount of research grants, but most from income from student numbers.
Spending was £84.7m for the year, which means the surplus of the year before was also replaced with a loss of £866,000.
It pumped another £29 million into readying the City Campus. But that’s the last major spend on the campus. Extract that body blow from the accounts next year, and suddenly things are looking up.
And as for that capacity on the remaining fourth floor?
“Our key challenges relate to the need to grow the student numbers, diversify our income and control costs,” to quote the end-of-year accounts.
“The rising 18-year-old population, which is expected to peak in 2023, provides an opportunity for the university to grow, and it is good to see growth emerging in 2025–26.”
Although all those external factors remain, “largely due to concerns around cost of living, undergraduate recruitment remains volatile, particularly in areas of provision such as nursing and education”.
“Overseas recruitment has been impacted in recent years by the political focus on cutting migration.
“We continue to focus on delivering sustained efficiency, contributing to regional economic growth and improving outcomes for students from disadvantaged backgrounds.
“Financial stability is an overarching aim of the university. Growth in turnover being at the heart of our ability to ensure sufficient surpluses and cash resources are generated to enable the university to invest in its people and infrastructure and provide excellent experiences.”
That city campus dovetails nicely into the rest of the city’s progress. It’s a stone’s throw from the already award-winning The Forum, a brand new office, leisure and retail building on the site of the former bus station – beside the new transport hub, which opened in October 2018.
Adjacent to that is a new retail and residential development, already in use, complete with rooftop gardens.
Exit the Northgate entrance to the City Campus and journey up and over the crossroads in the city centre, and on down Southgate Street, past the once down-at-heel Kimbrose Triangle, and you find another success story – the privately funded and hugely successful Food Dock.
Opposite it, on the city side, is the student accommodation in Ladybellegate Street, a £12 million investment by the university completed in 2020.
Stare out from the Food Dock’s eateries, facing south now, and you get a perfect view of the Docks, boats, historic buildings, independent restaurants and the Quays Retail Centre.
It is a different city to the one looked down on by many just a couple of decades ago. And the university has emerged as a key element of that change.
As the county faces devolution of its local government, and cities and towns UK-wide are seeking investment and change, there are probably more than a few who look to Gloucester and wish they had some of what it’s got.
It seems being in the heart of Gloucester some of the old city is rubbing off on Marchant already. Asked how she was going to celebrate the royal visit, she did not hesitate.
“I plan to take some of the team to Wetherspoons for a celebratory drink afterwards. I might be able to relax a little bit then,” she said.