Wye college seen from the churchyard

It’s now eighteen months since an extraordinary campaign to save the rural area of Wye in Kent fought off a vile and deceitful attempt to build on an official Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. I was proud to be a part of that campaign, and document it in my non-fiction retelling of the story, Saved.

If only the news had stayed as welcoming. We always knew that Imperial College, London, the principal developer behind the Wye plan, would probably abandon the village in which it inherited a promising agricultural college less than a decade before. But so soon?

The way things stand at the present Wye will, within just over a year, be without an institute of higher education for the first time in more than a century. The world-renowned academic staff has been dispersed. The few that remain are being shunted to offices in London. More than 800 acres of farmland have been rented out (which is, at least, better than being built on, though little of this has an academic purpose). The historic college building and the former country mansion of Withersdane now face a deeply uncertain future. No one knows what will happen to them after the college ceases business in Kent in 2009.

And all of this is happening at a time when the government is encouraging higher education, and the need for new bio-science courses and agricultural techniques - subjects at which Wye historically excelled - has never been greater.

There is, though, one small glimmer of hope. Today the Universities Secretary John Denham announced an opportunity for local authorities and regional development agencies to bid for funding to set up new universities. Twenty new universities are due to be set up under this scheme. A key factor for bids to be successful is that they should have the support of the local community.

Wye is a small university already. It needs some capital expenditure, because Imperial have neglected the old place terribly over the last decade. But it has the accommodation, the library, the IT network and the student accommodation already in place, waiting to be filled. It also has a local community that has fought tooth and nail to keep an academic presence in the village, and will go out of its way to assist any new bid to return learning to Wye.

What else does it need? Denham’s statement makes it clear. The backing of both the local authority and the regional development agency. In Wye’s case both of these bodies backed Imperial’s plans principally on the grounds that it would retain an academic presence in Wye. In truth, of course, it would never have done that, and all that would have happened is that several hundred acres of precious green countryside would have been turned into Tescoland.

Are they still serious about keeping a university in Wye? Who knows? If they are, now is the time to act, and restore some of the confidence the residents of this little corner of England have lost in the democratic process. The choice is theirs.

I know a lot of people followed the Wye story around the world, principally through save-wye.org, the website I ran with my fantastic colleague Justin Williams. Save-wye is now in suspended animation, and I don’t have time to get involved in a new campaign. But for those of you following the Wye story on the web I can point you to a new and excellent source of information, a lively village website that is on top of this and all other local stories.

So for more information head off to wyeweb.org now - and put it in your bookmarks.