The Royal Agricultural College (RAC) has unveiled a new accommodation block as part of the on-going investment in campus facilities.

The new self-catered block contains 57 en-suite bedrooms in two halls, and will be available to new undergraduate students from October 2012.  The new accommodation block will be particularly welcome as undergraduate student applications to the RAC have seen an encouraging increase, bucking the national trend. The overall figure for national applications for 2012 entry was down by 7.4% compared to 2011, while undergraduate applications at the RAC had increased by 8.3% for the same time period.

There is a communal lounge and kitchen on each of the three floors in each hall, along with under floor heating provided by the College’s bio-mass boiler. The RAC has, for some time, offered teaching, research and consultancy in the area of sustainability, but recent developments have seen the campus incorporate cutting-edge technology in order to cut the College’s carbon footprint, including the new biomass district heating system.   The new biomass boiler supplies the heat for the new accommodation block along with most of the teaching rooms on campus, the library, atrium café and sports hall.  

It is expected that the new heating system will reduce the College’s carbon emissions by 100 tonnes of CO2 each year.  The supply of woodchip for the College’s boiler comes from a supplier committed to using local sustainable sources and with a depot located in Gloucestershire.