{"id":81314,"date":"2014-03-14T19:24:32","date_gmt":"2014-03-14T19:24:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/samathieson.com\/sa-mathieson\/?p=81314"},"modified":"2017-07-12T18:55:43","modified_gmt":"2017-07-12T17:55:43","slug":"baniots-build-absolutely-nothing-in-oxford-try-swindon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/samathieson.com\/sa-mathieson\/baniots-build-absolutely-nothing-in-oxford-try-swindon\/","title":{"rendered":"Baniots: build absolutely nothing in Oxford… try Swindon"},"content":{"rendered":"

Building something new in Britain always meets resistance. That even applies to organisations which put their cities on the map, such as the University of Oxford, its new library buildings and student accommodation.<\/em><\/p>\n

First published on Beacon.<\/em><\/p>\n

Groups of police are not an everyday sight at Oxford\u2019s railway station, but they have been known to put in an appearance to meet Swindon Town<\/a>\u2019s fans. Trouble is not unknown when the Wiltshire football team travel 25 miles north-east to play Oxford United. Oxford and Swindon are a similar size, both being home to between 150,000 and 200,000 people, but otherwise have little in common. Oxford is synonymous with Britain\u2019s oldest university, which dates from the 12th century. Swindon was built on canals and railways in the 19th century, and even its most ardent fans would admit it is not as aesthetically blessed as Oxford.<\/p>\n

But despite the footballing rivalry and the differences in dignity, Swindon has an academic library that dwarfs those of Oxford. Its \u00a326m Book Storage Facility <\/a>holds more than seven million items in a state of the art building opened in 2010, where staff on cherry-pickers travel up and down 31 narrow aisles to retrieve items from 153 miles of shelving, configured in 36 foot-high units.<\/p>\n

This is not because the University of Oxford has been neglecting its libraries; quite the opposite. Swindon\u2019s Book Storage Facility stores the vast majority of the Bodleian Library \u2013 the central library of the University of Oxford. The reason it is 25 miles away tells you volumes about the planning sclerosis that affects many places in Britain. Oxford has it worse than most.<\/p>\n

The centre of Oxford is, without doubt, a thing of beauty. It is also hemmed in by the Thames and the Cherwell rivers and their flood plains, limiting development. But it is also hemmed in by an invisible barrier: the Green Belt.<\/p>\n

The UK\u2019s Green Belts are rings of land, defined just before and after the Second World War, on which building is generally forbidden. Most of England\u2019s big cities have green belts, and altogether they cover 13% of England<\/a>, with the result that the country has little urban sprawl. Cities may no longer have walls around them, but in Britain they tend to stop suddenly as if they did.<\/p>\n

This can put enormous pressure on the cities within the belts, particularly if they are small and economically successful. Oxford is both, and has little space for new buildings. And even when space can be found, a builder has to win planning permission.<\/p>\n

The Bodleian, by law, receives a copy of every book published in the British Isles, and buys many more globally. It had run out of space in its main buildings in central Oxford, including the Radcliffe Camera in the top picture \u2013 the kind of library one might imagine God considering a little too showy. The library had been using various stopgaps, including purpose-built storage buildings in the grounds of an 18th century manor house in the Oxfordshire village of Nuneham Courtney \u2013 built by a courtier of George III, now run as a meditation centre by the Brahma Kumaris World Spiritual University<\/a> \u2013 and disused salt mines under Cheshire, the latter more than 100 miles away.<\/p>\n

The salt mines have given up their contents, and the grounds of Nuneham House are safe for meditators; just over two years ago, the Bodleian shelved the seven millionth item in the Book Storage Facility<\/a>. This has allowed the Bodleian to empty, gut and renovate one of its main buildings in central Oxford, which will reopen later this year. This corporate video shows both the Swindon facility in action, and the plans for the renovated building.<\/p>\n