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All change on campus: Service Tunnels

9th Oct 2009

Photo by Tom Flathers

Sub­way refur­bish­ment — Photo by Tom Flathers

LESS visu­ally appeal­ing than the Muir­head Tower and Aston Webb projects, but, if any­thing, more impor­tant, is the refur­bish­ment of the net­work of ser­vices tun­nels under­neath the cam­pus. Unknown to the major­ity of mem­bers of the Uni­ver­sity, these tun­nels carry steam, heat­ing, hot and cold water, power, data and com­mu­ni­ca­tions sys­tems. 90 per cent were con­structed in 1950s and 1960s, so they are now due for cru­cial work for things like asbestos removal, pipework renewals and water­proof­ing. Most of the work can be done under­ground, although some needs to be done above ground, hence the build­ing work in Uni­ver­sity Square. It will be done over this sum­mer and next summer.

For the time being the green boards that we have all become fairly accus­tomed to, have cre­ated space for adver­tise­ments for the Bar­ber Insti­tute, have win­dows in (for all the nosy stu­dents or closet peep­ing toms) and more infor­ma­tion on the build­ing works for any­one interested.

Jude Hill, Laura Hewitt and Tom Pratt