News archive 2003

Block 9: An update

20 Oct 2003, PR 73/03

King's College and the Guy’s & St Thomas’ Hospital NHS Trust to develop a joint plan for the St Thomas’s Campus.

In October 2002, King’s College Council agreed to sell Block 9 and the Prideaux Building on the St Thomas’s Campus to the Guy’s and St Thomas’s Charitable Foundation. On the advice of key members of the Council (the Chairman, the two Vice-Chairmen, the Honorary Treasurer, the Chairman of the College’s Estates Strategy Committee, and other members of the Council) plus senior College Officers, the Council has agreed at its October meeting that these buildings should not be sold and that the College will work closely with the Guy’s & St Thomas’ Hospital NHS Trust to develop a joint plan for the whole Campus.

Over the last twelve months, the College has been involved in detailed discussion with the Charity Commission, the Guy’s & St Thomas’ Charitable Foundation, and the Guy’s & St Thomas’ Hospital NHS Trust over details of the sale. It was always expected that space would be provided for both service provision and education.

Over the last period, Council and senior College officers came to the conclusion that an outright sale was questionable on both academic and strategic grounds, particularly in the light of the Hospital Trust’s recently launched strategic review and the College’s strategic plan 2001-2010. These are providing the foundations for an exciting programme to revitalise the St Thomas’s Campus as a centre for research and teaching. Joint planning for this between the College and the Hospital Trust is well advanced with outcomes expected by June 2004.

The Council’s decision not to sell Block 9 and the Prideaux Building both underlines the College’s continuing commitment to the St Thomas’ Campus and creates a climate that is conducive to attracting long-term investment in the Campus and its activities. Furthermore, plans for the refurbishment of the Strand Campus are not affected. To a large extent, this has been made possible by the financial flexibility afforded by £36 million of science research infrastructure funding (the SRIF 2 programme) which came to the College in Spring 2003.

Notes to editors

King's College London
King's College London is the fourth oldest university in England with more than 13,700 undergraduates and nearly 5,600 graduate students in nine schools of study based at five London campuses. It is a member of the Russell Group: a coalition of the UK's major research-based universities. The College has had 24 of its subject-areas awarded the highest rating of 5* and 5 for research quality, demonstrating excellence at an international level, and it has recently received an excellent result in its audit by the Quality Assurance Agency.

King's has a particularly distinguished reputation in the humanities, law, international relations, medicine, nursing and the sciences, and has played major role in many of the advances that have shaped modern life, such as the discovery of the structure of DNA. It is the largest centre for the education of health care professionals in Europe and is home to five Medical Research Council Centres – more than any other university.

King's is in the top group of UK universities for research earnings, with income from grants and contracts of more than £114 million, and has anannual income of more than £369 million.



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