The University of Gloucestershire's brand-new City Campus is finally ready to welcome visitors and students, with an official opening date on Monday 18 August 2025.
Students are set to arrive as early as late August for the start of their studies and they'll be able to take advantage of the new facilities in Kings Square.
But proving its commitment to the regeneration of Gloucester city centre and the community it serves, the university is also inviting local residents to its arts, health and wellbeing centre – which is being delivered in partnership with the NHS Integrated Care Board.
Alongside plenty of spaces for students of education, psychology and social work specialisms, the new campus is also creating areas for the arts, with a gallery located on the ground floor that will be managed by PhD students to allow for a steady rotation of exhibitions.
The facilities will also be home to a range of programmes to support arts on prescription, for those who have been advised to enjoy art as a therapy.
These programmes include tactile art for adults with chronic joint pain, such as arthritis; and singing sessions for those with respiratory issues, to help with their lung health.
Vice-chancellor of the University of Gloucestershire, Dame Clare Marchant, said: 'The community space will be behind security access, to allow the sessions to be specially organised for those interventions.
'If you think about it from an NHS clinical context, it's about evidence, data and the use of tech. So from a research perspective [we can find out what treatments] work and what doesn't work – that's the ethos of this.'
Some of the rooms are also expected to be used by GPs, nurses and social workers for training or research purposes, alongside various experimental labs for studying things like electrography, which measures naturally occurring electrical activity in the brain – giving insight into the effects that some of the arts on prescription interventions have on the brain.
The City Campus also features virtual reality capabilities, which can allow for research into how putting people into different situations – such as riding a bike through France rather than while watching an endless news programme at the gym – can affect a person's mental health.
Gloucester's city library is also relocating from Brunswick Road to its new home at the campus, with councillor Paul Hodgkinson, cabinet member for libraries at Gloucestershire County Council, adding: 'Not only will the transformed building breathe new life into Kings Square, but it will also provide wonderful new facilities to library users.
'Co-locating with the City Campus will create a vibrant, dynamic and inspirational new environment in Gloucester.'
The new University of Gloucestershire City Campus and its arts, health and wellbeing centre, opens from Monday 18 August 2025.
