OXFORD Brookes University is set to move a 2,500-student business school from Wheatley to Oxford this year, it has been claimed.

The university told the Oxford Mail that it would make an announcement about its estate this month, but denied it would sell the rural campus.

However a source close to senior management revealed that moving some facilities to Headington – including the business school – could begin within the next 12 months.

The university has a stated aim of reducing its estate by 15 per cent by 2020 and – it is understood – removing the need for a costly upgrade of its ageing buildings there.

The source said: “The likelihood is it will happen in 2015. But the process will take place over a period of time, because it has to be done in a way that allows them to move to new facilities.

“If the business school moved first it has to move to somewhere in the Headington campus and that would mean refurbishments there over a period of years.”

Discussions about the fate of the campus, the source added, have been ongoing since 2010.

Oxford Brookes University spokesman Matthew Butler said: “No decision has been made by Oxford Brookes to sell the Wheatley Campus.

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“The university is in the process of developing a 10-year plan which takes into account all of the options.’’ One community leader said that communicating with people in the local area was vital if the university was considering the move.

Headington Action chariman Patrick Coulter said: “We’re not against large institutions in Headington, but what we do expect is for Oxford Brookes to consult with the local community and the council before making a decision.

“Of course there would be impact on housing for students and possibly staff relocating from the Wheatley Campus.”

Documents referring to the possible disposal of teaching buildings in Wheatley go back as far as 2010.

In one titled “Towards a university estates strategy 2011-15”, estates staff warned that public spending squeezes in higher education and the costs of the new John Henry Brookes Building meant its Wheatley and Harcourt Hill sites might not be redeveloped. The document set out three options for achieving a total 15 per cent reduction, one of which was getting rid of its Wheatley buildings.

It said: “It is assumed that the whole of the business school will relocate to the Fuller and Gibbs buildings [in the Headington campus] and/or into the existing library.

“Aside from these two buildings, the remainder of the estate [would be] set out for demolition and disposal.”

Newer buildings used by the school of technology, it said, could be kept.

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