Falmouth University will be opening a new campus in Truro city centre. The £200 million development will include a hotel, restaurant, and 300 homes built alongside the university centre. It is a joint collaboration between Falmouth University, Cornwall Council, and Treveth Development, and aims to bolster a thriving local community.
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The University will be the primary tenant of the development, which will serve as a town square for the local community. It will provide a home base for 750 students, as well as business partners, research teams, and staff. The state of the art facilities will be built in the hopes of attracting more young people to the city. They will be host to classes in the fields of creativity and technology.
Falmouth University vice-chancellor Emma Hunt said, “We are delighted to be progressing our involvement on this exciting project.
“Not only will our students, researchers and colleagues bring their economic and academic value to the city, we envisage the facility and the resources within it as being open [and] available to the local community for educational, entertainment and business uses.”
Pydar project director James Windsor told CornwallLive, “This shows to the world and outside parties that there’s a formal legal document in place, which opens up discussions with hoteliers and other commercial operators. We’ve seen over the last couple of weeks there’s a high level of interest among people wanting to come to Pydar as they see the university, they see hundreds of students on a campus in the centre of Truro and they say ‘I’m a hotelier, I recognise that a portion of those students are international students, so they’re going to attract their mums and dads who will need a place to stay, or I’m interested in opening a bar or restaurant, a health food store, etc, as I’ve got a catchment of 750 students’.”
Progress on the new campus hinges on approval of a reserved matters application. Alongside the university as an anchor tenant, the next steps are to demonstrate a cleared site ready for construction, along with planning approval and an archaeological investigation.
The development offers opportunities in a wide range of sectors, and has the potential to revitalize the area. With the current timeline, residents will be able to move into the site in 2026.