‘Broken promises’ over campus closure see city ‘miss out on £3m’

NEWPORT has reportedly missed out on around £3m of investment after a university merger and the closure of a campus.

- JONATHON HILL AND NICHOLAS THOMAS

Tory councillor Matthew Evans has claimed that student numbers in the city have drastically fallen over the past 15 years and criticised what he termed as “broken” promises to invest in higher education.

The University of South Wales (USW) was established in 2013 when the University of Newport merged with the University of Glamorgan, two years after a new city centre campus for business and media was inaugurated in Usk Way.

Despite opposition, the Caerleon campus was shut down in 2016. Most of the site has since been redeveloped into housing, with the exception of the main block and some other listed buildings. USW says it is “committed to providing our students, colleagues, and partners with the very best experience at our Newport campus”.

At a council meeting, Cllr Evans, who leads the opposition Conservative group, alleged that the only university students living in Newport were “a few from Bristol”. Students live in a block of flats at Usk Way.

In 2022, we spoke to students who attended university in the west of England who were surprised to have ended up in student halls in Newport.