Portsmouth’s new London branch campus launches

The University of Portsmouth has become the latest institution to establish a presence in London with the launch of its new branch campus in Waltham Forest.

Postgraduate students will be taught from the south coast university’s Walthamstow base from February 2024, with undergraduate students joining in September 2024.

Vice-chancellor Graham Galbraith said setting up in the capital would help the university achieve its ambition to become “the top modern university in the UK, and one of the top 100 young universities in the world, by 2030”.

Several universities based in other parts of the UK have targeted London for student recruitment in recent years, particularly in rapidly regenerating east London, where the development of Stratford’s Olympic Park has opened up new opportunities for expansion.

Teesside University opened a base in the Stratford innovation park, Here East, in January, while York St John University set up in the London Docklands area last year, and Nottingham Trent University has launched in Whitechapel. Sheffield Hallam University has plans to offer degree-level courses from a new site in north-west London from 2025-26.

They join more established players including Anglia Ruskin, Loughborough and Coventry universities and the universities of the West of Scotland and Wales, Trinity St David, which all opened London campuses in the 2010s.

Universities have argued that a London presence helps to recruit more students, particularly lucrative international postgraduate students, and to establish fresh links with businesses and local areas. But such projects have also been criticised as expensive “vanity” endeavours, with staff calling for money to be invested in home campuses instead.

Portsmouth’s site will initially occupy just two floors of a building called Juniper House, located near Walthamstow Central Station.

It said it will offer work-based opportunities such as apprenticeships and flexible learning alongside traditional degree courses.

The university added that the new campus is estimated to deliver a boost of up to £372 million to the borough’s economy over the next 20 years and will create 500 new jobs.

Grace Williams, leader of Waltham Forest Council, said the campus “will offer our residents a world-class education right on our doorstep, whatever their age or background”.

She added that she hopes care leavers in particular will benefit owing to a new bursary being offered by the university.

“With a campus now on our doorstep, I hope more of our care-experienced young people feel empowered by the opportunities afforded to them by higher education and can see higher education as an option for them,” Ms Williams said.

tom.williams@timeshighereducation.com