The Bedford campus has lots of green open spaces yet is close to Bedford town centre and local amenities. It boasts our Gateway building, a three-storey building that offers high-quality teaching spaces, informal learning spaces, lecture theatres and a new student services centre.
There’s also a Forest School for trainee teachers, a 280-seat professional theatre and dance studios, a Physical Education and Sport Science Centre, which was used to train athletes in the 2012 Olympics, and a newly refurbished Students' Union social space.
Bedford is a riverside town with a mixture of lively traditional pubs and restaurants, shops and first-class sports facilities. The Corn Exchange in the town centre shows regular music and comedy gigs, plus there are museums, landscaped parks, and a cinema.
Bedford is well-placed with its main train station linking London and Brighton to the south and Leicester, Nottingham and Sheffield to the north.
The surrounding area has a wealth of parks and open spaces including Bedford Park near the Bedford campus which is ideal for walks, cricket, tennis and basketball. Slightly further afield are 206 acres of open country for lake and river walks, angling, wildlife and conservation areas.
Also close by is Woburn Abbey and Safari Park, and the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) nature reserve at Sandy.
Bedford campus is next to the A428 on the eastern side of Bedford (Polhill Avenue).
There are frequent trains, operated by Thameslink from London St Pancras International station - journey time about 50 minutes.
East Midlands Trains also run from London St Pancras International station - journey time about 40 minutes.
There are also direct trains from Leicester, Derby, Nottingham and Sheffield. Services to the West Midlands, Lancashire, and Scotland are via Milton Keynes.
The University runs a free shuttle bus for staff and students from Bedford train station to the campus.
At our Bedford campus we offer plenty of on-site parking.
The University has invested £25m into a 'gateway to learning in Bedford'.
The three-storey building located at the entrance of the Bedford campus opened to students in January 2015.
Part of the University's 'greening of the campus' initiative, the Gateway includes a number of sustainable and low carbon technologies such as rainwater harvesting. The project team are aiming towards a BREEAM sustainability rating of 'excellent'.
The sports hall is an integral space in the School of Sport Science and Physical Activity, complementing the discipline leading Sport and Exercise Science and muscle cell and molecular biology laboratories, all co-located on the Bedford campus.
It is a major teaching facility for the University's Sport and Physical Education degree courses which have trained physical educators in the UK for over a century.
The Aspire Gyms offer a range of affordable membership options giving students exclusive use of a convenient, campus-based fitness facility.
The Bedford Gym facilitates state of the art cardiovascular equipment with iPod and iPhone compatibility. The Gym also has an extensive range of fixed resistance machines and a small free weights area.
The Bedford site has changing rooms with showers and lockers for members to use.
The Forest School at the Bedford campus provides a resource for the University’s trainee teachers as well as opportunities to the local community for teachers to be trained in outdoor learning and for their classes to experience the educational benefits of outdoor play.
We have a long-established history in teacher training and education with over 500 partnerships with schools, colleges and other organisations. We offer a wide range of opportunities and routes into teaching.