University dying a slow death and city is feeling the pinch
Marcus Hughes reports on the concerns voiced by former students in Newport, and city entrepreneurs, as the once-thriving centre is turning into a ghost town...
TEN years ago Newport was the proud home of a long-established student community that brought life and vibrancy to Wales’ third-largest city.
But since a controversial merger of the University of Glamorgan and the University of Wales in 2013, concerns have been raised about the dwindling number of students undertaking degree courses in Newport.
Bar and club owners have reported decreasing numbers at mid-week events, and recent graduates speak of a lifeless student social scene.
Residents and politicians have also raised serious concerns about the potential impact on the local economy, job creation and culture in Newport.
The now-merged University of South Wales used to publish figures for the number of students in Newport, but has now stopped and is rejecting Freedom of Information requests to release them.
The University of Wales, Newport, underwent a complete rebrand in 2013, merging with the University of Glamorgan to become the University of South Wales.
Following this, governors made the decision to close the 32-acre campus in Caerleon – slicing a sizeable chunk of the student population from Newport.
The much smaller Newport City Campus remained, with a nearby tower block of student housing. But many celebrated arts and media courses were moved to the Cardiff Atrium campus.
Tahnee Chambers is originally from Birmingham, but moved to Newport to take her degree in English about 10 years ago. The 31-yearold mother of one remained in Newport after her degree and returned to Newport City Campus last year to take her post-graduate certificate in education.
“I was only there for two days a week but it was dead,” she said. “There were no events or anything social and a lack of a student union was really felt. I could guess maybe I would see a hundred students a day. There are only a handful of courses offered there.”
Now a teacher working in Bristol, Tahnee said the atmosphere among students is completely different from what she experienced studying in Newport a decade ago.
“The student population is very different. It’s mainly adult learners and part-time students.”
Iftekhar Harris has run a number of clubs in Newport over the past 15 years, and still owns the popular Warehouse 54, The Courtyard and Blind Tiger. He said his clubs not only served students in the city, but also provided much-needed parttime employment opportunities.
“Having a building is not having a university,” Mr Harris said. “The student community is non-existent. One of the ways you can get an indication of how many students are around is by counting the job applications from students, and there are just literally none.
“There’s only a handful of people, and when you ask them they are studying in Cardiff. What we have found over the last few years is numbers have dropped, dropped and dropped again.”
Mr Harris said his mid-week club nights used to regularly attract thousands of students. A Monday-night open-mic event at Warehouse 54 used to attract hundreds alone. But that scheduled event went quiet overnight after the Caerleon closure.
“You had a university that was serving the people of Newport as well,” Mr Harris added. “Those that weren’t as well off could have stayed at home and studied. Now they can’t do that.”
Newport City Campus was purpose-built to house subjects under the “creative industries” banner, as well as the Newport Business School. Courses that thrived in Newport as a legacy of the city’s renowned art school, such as documentary film, photography, sound and music design, animation, and fashion were given bespoke studio space and equipment in the £35m development which opened its doors in early 2010. Following the merger and rebrand, those creative industries courses have been moved to the University of South Wales’ Atrium campus in Cardiff.
Sam Dabb runs Le Public Space in High Street, a community-owned arts, performance and live music venue. Sam said the disappearance of students creating and consuming culture has had a major impact.
“It’s hit Le Pub really hard,” she said. “We were a hub for creative students hosting monthly photography nights and other course-related events.
“When they moved all the creative courses they not only took visiting students out of Newport, but they also gave the impression to artists born in Newport that the only way to succeed is to leave the town. We have a long history of arts in Newport and they just trampled all over it.”
Until the 2015 to 2016 academic year, the University of South Wales published student numbers for each of its campuses as part of its annual review.
In 2013 there were 4,334 students studying at the Caerleon Campus, alongside 2,719 who were based on City Campus. This made up a significant proportion of the 31,127 fulltime and part-time students enrolled on University of South Wales courses that year.
Over the previous two academic years, the university has only released figures for the total number of students across all campuses. This total had fallen to 28,132 during the 2016 to 2017 academic year.
Newport council’s Conservative group attempted to obtain data on the number of students studying in Newport by submitting a freedom of information request to the university. The request was declined with the university citing “commercial sensitivity”.
Conservative councillor and former mayor David Fouweather said: “It’s in the public interest to have this data. It’s very concerning.”
A spokeswoman for the University of South Wales said: “It’s a matter of public record that USW inherited a pattern of falling applications going back years at the Newport campuses. “We’re now seeing the trend turn. “We’ve introduced new courses in business, a new centre for counselling and therapies, and the National Cyber Security Academy in Newport.”