THE County Ground, Oasis leisure centre and Wyvern Theatre could all be used as part of a town centre university campus, it has been suggested.

Swindon Civic Trust insists that the University of Bath can build within the town centre rather than at Coate and has now published a report detailing how and where it could be done.

The trust says that it has found four times as much land as the university says it needs.

And the trust, pointing to an Adver poll that showed 53 per cent of Swindon residents wanted a town centre campus, said that local people should be given a say.

"Has anybody asked the people of Swindon where they want the university to be?" said Alan Hayward, one of the authors of the report. "No they have not.

"The university has not done any consultation on what the public think."

The trust's report, published yesterday, identifies a swathe of land running from Regent Circus, along Princes Street, through Whale Bridge and Carfax to North Star for a campus.

It argues that the university's requirements for land could easily be met within the town centre but that the council needs to take the lead in making the land available possibly even through compulsory purchase orders.

Included in the trust's ideas are the possibility of the university sharing sports facilities at the County Ground, re-using the Oasis leisure centre as part of a science and engineering campus, and integrating the Wyvern Theatre into the university.

The university's school of health could still be housed next to the Great Western Hospital to allow links between the hospital and university.

The trust also argues that university students could be forced to live in new university accommodation to stop them taking over areas of the town at the expense of communities.

Plans to build at Coate are against Government planning rules and would devastate the area, according to the trust.

Chairman John Monniot said: "It is no exaggeration to say we were gobsmacked and dismayed when we heard of plans to site the university plus homes plus a business park at Coate."

"It really was a bombshell. What ever people say the proposed university will devastate the place."

And Mr Monniot said the town centre needed the university.

The report will be available on the trust's website at www.swindoncivictrust.org.uk.

The University of Bath insists that it cannot build in the town centre.

Isabel Field