Cambridge professor takes own university to court over new library 'megabuilding'

Cambridge University is locked in a dispute with one of its own professors over plans for a state-of-the-art library “megabuilding” following allegations that its architecture is “too coarse” for historic Cambridge.

The university's Christ's College, which counts Charles Darwin and J Robert Oppenheimer among its former students, aims to demolish its outdated 1970s library and replace it with a contemporary central facility.

The scheme features a four-storey library arranged around a three-storey reading room, with an elevated bridge connecting to the historic Grade-I listed Bodley Library nearby.

The proposals incorporate a “deep masonry wall” facing the street, alongside a pleated sloping roof intended to create a “canopy of light and shade” for the interior, collecting rainwater and solar energy while absorbing sound.

However, the college faces a legal challenge from a campaign group led in court by Suchitra Sebastian, one of the university's professors of physics, amid complaints that the facility is “too big” for central Cambridge.

Online campaign material from the Christ's Lane Action Group (CLAG) condemns the design as “too bulky”.

The organisation claims that the building would “destroy the integrity of Cambridge's core conservation area”, dwarfing the “vibrant and busy Christ's Lane and robbing the thoroughfare of its historic character.

Four Grade-I listed sites would also be at risk from the college's “overbearing scheme”, according to the group, which also brands the new library a “megabuilding”.

Proposals for the new library were voted through by Cambridge City Council in 2025, but were then held up by a High Court challenge to the decision, ultimately resulting in permission being quashed.

But the college went on to make a new application for an “almost identical” plan, which the council voted in favour of last week.

It was then frozen by Minister of Housing, Communities and Local Government Angela Rayner, pending a decision whether to “call in” the application for ministerial consideration.

The dispute reached the High Court in London on Tuesday after CLAG – with Prof Sebastian in court – sought a judge's ruling on what went wrong with the way Cambridge City Council made its decision on the first application in 2025.

Outlining the background, CLAG barrister Emma Dring said that the existing 1970s library is connected to the Grade-I listed 19th-century Bodley Library, on the corner of Christ’s Lane and St Andrew’s Street.

The college has in 2011 and 2016 secured planning permission to demolish and rebuild the library, but not gone through with the plans.

However, a controversial new Library+ proposal was made in June 2025, omitting previous plans for a basement floor, but including four above ground and with the upper floor extended.

The college says the four levels would be gathered around a three-storey reading room and would be connected directly with the adjacent historic Bodley Library and Upper Hall.

However, Ms Dring said heritage body Historic England had been consulted and, although it did not object to the application, raised concerns of “increased massing” and “excessive bulk”.

The approximately 40ft high building would be too domineering, “too big for its location” and “would detract from the setting of the surrounding buildings,” said the heritage body.

But Ms Dring said the city council had been misled as to Heritage England's full concerns about the building when making its decision on the application.

She said that the council planning committee had been given an “incomplete and misleading summary” of Historic England's position, tainting the approval decision.

It had also failed to take into account the “relevant consideration” of the existence of “less harmful” alternative ways to develop the site, she said.

Giving judgment and quashing the 2025 planning permission, Mr Justice Kolinsky said both the council and the college accepted in court that there had been errors in the way it was considered by the council.

These included the fact Historic England's concerns were not fully communicated to the planning committee and that the potential for alternative plans, less harmful to listed buildings, had not been taken into consideration.

“It is certainly the fact that the defendant went wrong in law, but it has conceded this already,” said the judge, approving an order consented to by the council and college that the permission should be quashed.

The decision means that the 2025 planning permission stands quashed, with the reasons for that now officially recorded in the consent order.

The second library application remains live while a decision is made whether to call it in for a decision on a ministerial level.