Praise and Criticism for Surrey's Olympic Sports Park

Date: 24-June-2010 

The University of Surrey's £36 million Surrey Sports Park was launched last month and will be run as a commercial business.

The new park, which is already being used by Harlequins rugby club, is being considered by China as a possible base for the London 2010 Olympics. It will also host the 2010 Women's Rugby World Cup, which starts in August.

The sports parks is being heralded as a model for future university sports facilities by the universities vice-chancellor Professor Christopher Snowden. Setting the park up as a commercial enterprise will prevent the park becoming an expensive subsidy and drain on the universities resources in future, Snowden has said.

However, staff at Surrey have criticised the new park which they say offers inferior working contracts for new empoyees.

Read the full story at the Times Higher Education website.