reports

Report of the Council on the construction of a new building for the Kavli Institute of Cosmology

The COUNCIL begs leave to report to the University as follows:

1. As reported by the General Board in their Report, dated 18 October 2006, on the establishment of a Kavli Institute and related matters (Reporter, 2006-07, p. 119) the University successfully submitted a proposal to the Kavli Foundation to establish a Kavli Institute in Cosmology. The Foundation have donated $7.5m to support a number of research fellowships and research programmes in the Institute.

2. The Council has received a proposal from the School of Physical Sciences for the construction of a new building for the Kavli Institute of Cosmology of about 1,000 sq.m. gross internal floor area. The proposal has been considered by the Buildings Committee and the Planning and Resources Committee who have recommended that the Council seek approval for the construction of the new building.

3. The establishment of the Institute, to be located adjacent to the Institute of Astronomy's facilities at Madingley Rise, is consistent with the strategy of the School of the Physical Sciences to draw together Astrophysics research groups from the Institute of Astronomy, Department of Physics, and, to some extent, from the Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics. A future development, to complete implementation of the strategy, will be the construction of an Astrophysics building adjacent to the Kavli Institute and the Institute of Astronomy.

4. The Planning Authority has indicated that the planning application should include details of the new buildings for both the Kavli Institute of Cosmology and the Astrophysics Building.

5. The new building for the Kavli Institute of Cosmology will accommodate office and support facilities and the new building for Astrophysics laboratories, offices, and support facilities. Drawings of the proposed project are displayed for the information of the University in the Schools Arcade.

6. To accommodate the construction of the new buildings a timber workshop used by the gardening service will be relocated and most, but not all of the Solar Physics Observatory (SPO) will be demolished (280 sq.m.), together with the Institute of Astronomy's workshop (146 sq.m.), a storage barn (26 sq.m.), and a telescope storage facility (26 sq.m.), all at a cost of approximately £75,000. The telescope dome connected to the east end of the SPO building and an adjoining small section of the SPO building itself will be retained and refurbished using departmental funds to enable it to be used as a public outreach facility for astronomy.

7. The cost of the Kavli Institute building will be £4m which is anticipated to be met from the HEFCE capital programme. It is estimated that the running costs of the new building will be £59,000 a year. These costs will be met partly from savings resulting from the demolition of the existing buildings referred to above and partly from the additional research grant income associated with the new research programme at the Institute.

8. The Planning and Resources Committee, at their meeting on 21 February 2007, approved the Full Case, under the Capital Projects Procedure, for the Kavli Institute and approved the Concept Paper for the Astrophysics Building.

9. The Council recommends:

I. That approval be given for part of the Solar Physics Observatory and a workshop and storage barn at the Institute of Astronomy to be demolished.

II. That approval be given for the construction of a new building for the Kavli Institute of Cosmology on the same site.

III. That the Director of Estate Management and Building Service be authorized to apply for detailed planning approval in due course.

IV. That the Pro-Vice-Chancellor (Planning and Resources) be authorized to accept a tender, within the available funding, for the building and all associated works in due course.

•  Madingley Rise Site Plan