Chemistry building damaged by fire

A landmark 20 million chemistry lab destroyed by fire was set to open next year hosting world-leading research.

The University of Nottingham's new sustainable chemistry building, still under construction at the city Jubilee Campus, was "completely destroyed" in a blaze first reported at 8.30pm, yesterday.

Paul Greatrix, university registrar, said the innovative project was to be "the world's first carbon neutral lab", and would have been home to work aimed at "fundamentally changing how we do chemistry in a more sustainable way".

The lab had received a 12 million grant from pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline and was set to open some time next year.

Mr Greatrix described the building's destruction as a "set-back" but vowed "we will recover, we will re-build and hopefully in short order we'll be on track".

The shell of the building had been finished, but the project had not yet reached the internal fitting-out phase, according to the university.

More than 60 firefighters tackled a huge fire at the Triumph Road site overnight, bringing the flames under control by 1am.

An open day with up to 18,000 prospective students and their families expected to visit the university today is going ahead.

Mr Greatrix said the threat of the flames spreading to neighbouring university buildings - some just 20m (65ft) away - had been a very real possibility, but firefighters had worked diligently to stop it happening.

"Fortunately the wind was blowing the other way, but there was a lot of heat and there were bits of debris in the air landing all over the road," he said.

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Chemistry building damaged by fire