Official opening of the Elizabeth Creak laboratories building

Posted 7 June 2017

Harper Adams University today welcomed trustees of the Elizabeth Creak Charitable Trust to the opening of the University’s new laboratories, made possible by their generous donation. Mr Paul May, Chairman of the Trust formally opened the Elizabeth Creak building.

The Trust made a substantial contribution to the £2.5 million extension to the 30-year-old Princess Margaret Laboratories, helping the University to realise its ambition to have larger, more modern teaching laboratories, a specialist microbiology room and a new anatomy teaching facility.

Vice-Chancellor, Dr. David Llewellyn, explained: “The main aim in creating the Elizabeth Creak Building was to increase our facilities and capacity for teaching agricultural science and to enhance our current teaching facilities.

“The new laboratories have dividing internal walls to make the space very flexible for different group sizes and have high quality audio visual equipment to improve the students’ experience. Repeater screens throughout the labs allow everyone in the room to see, at the same time, any specimen being discussed in a practical class.

“Now that we have been able to move teaching into the new building, we can make smaller laboratories available for dedicated student project work.

“We are extremely grateful to the trustees of the Elizabeth Creak Charitable Trust for what they have helped us to achieve.

“The trustees have already provided student scholarships at both undergraduate and postgraduate level, and sponsorship for senior academic positions. Their investment in our campus infrastructure will help us ensure the visions of our founder, Thomas Harper Adams, and their benefactor, Elizabeth Creak, can be met.”

Mr May, officially opening the building, told guests: “Elizabeth left very few guidelines for the Trust, but top of her shortlist of places she wanted to ensure we supported was Harper Adams, so we feel she would have thoroughly approved of our contribution to this impressive new facility.

“Many of you here will know better than I that we have some big challenges facing us and it is great to see Harper Adams providing a guiding light in these stormy seas with all your recent investment in infrastructure and expertise. Thomas Harper Adams would, I am sure, have been very proud of what Harper Adams has now become!”

The Elizabeth Creak Charitable Trust was established by Elizabeth Creak, a former High Sheriff of Warwickshire, who previously ran a significant dairy farm and bequeathed her estate to “support and encourage new blood in farming and finance projects to help farmers survive and thrive in their challenging modern environment”.

The Elizabeth Creak Building provides a new focal point as students, staff and visitors travel north through the university campus. A bright, modern statement building, it features angled windows – with views across the campus and university farm, and makes use of the latest living wall technologies, comprising plants which are monitored, fed and watered via a smart system housed inside the building.