ABSTRACT
Universities' premises costs have long been second only to staff costs, and therefore an attractive and easy, and often misguided, target for financial cuts in struggling universities. There was a growing acceptance of integrated estate-wide planning, with programme and project procurement and decision-making, achieving cost-effectiveness and adequate risk management. Researchers are creating ever-more exciting research opportunities but were hampered by the deficiencies in buildings' extent, facilities and condition, especially where heavier burdens were being imposed by the health and safety industry. There was a particularly powerful population of highly successful, confident and demanding academics fed up with years of austerity and with government interference. A lot of academics are like simmering kettles with all the pressures caused by poor facilities; but more money was available especially from UK and US benefactors as huge gains were made from stock exchanges, as tax legislation made benefaction to universities more attractive and as government capital funding was suddenly made available.
