BUILDERS and Oxford University dons have celebrated “topping out” one of Oxford’s newest and most prominent buildings.

The Blavatnik School of Government in the Radcliffe Observatory Quarter, off Walton Street, has reached its top-most point after construction started at the beginning of last year.

Over the next seven months, workers will begin the final stages of construction, including the difficult task of putting its many glass panels in place.

So far more than 275,000 hours have been put into the project and it is hoped it will be finished in September.

Oxford City Council’s guidelines say that no building within 1,200m of the 23-metre Carfax Tower may be taller than 18.2m. The Blavatnik building is 22.5 metres high.

Jericho Community Association trustee Jenny Mann, of Victor Street, said there were still concerns about its prominence in the area. She said: “It is an attractive building on paper but it is too big for its site.”

Ukrainian-American benefactor Leonard Blavatnik, said to have a net worth of more than £12bn, donated £75m to the university for the school’s construction in 2010.

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