A UNIVERSITY complex due to open next month has been hailed as one of the most advanced environmentally-friendly developments in the region.

Northumbria University has built the £70m City Campus East, in Newcastle, for the Newcastle Business School, Northumbria School of Design and Northumbria Law School.

At least 9,000 staff and students will move into the campus, which is on the site of the old Manors cinema.

The two buildings have an "excellent" rating under the Building Research Environmental Assessement Method (BREAM).

Among its environmental benefits are:

* It was built on a brownfield site, rather than a greenfield site;

* 95 per cent of the materials from the Warner Brothers cinema, which previously occupied the site, have been recycled. Waste materials from construction work have been returned to the manufacturers for reprocessing;

* A lightwell - a kind of shaft - starts on the roof of Newcastle Business School and Northumbria Law School and stretches into the heart of the building, reducing the need for artificial lighting and saving energy;

* Stainless steel mesh panels and aluminium tube arrays reduce solar heat build-up, cutting the need for air conditioning;

* Kalwall translucent cladding material on the external wall of the School of Design, means better natural light inside, reducing the need for artificial lights;

* Rainwater from roofs and surface areas will be collected in underground tanks, filtered and re-used to flush toilets. This saves water and the energy normally required to pump mains water, reducing energy use and carbon dioxide emissions;

* City Campus East will have some of its water heated by a solar system on the roof. This will reduce the need for energy and could save up to 30 tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions;

* Lights will dim or turn off automatically when not required;

* There will be no extra car parking spaces. The university is instead encouraging students, staff and visitors to travel to and from the campus by more sustainable means and 160 places have been provided for cyclists.

Trevor Thurlow, director of estates at the university, and his team were involved throughout the design process, working with Atkins Architects, of Leeds.

He said: "We took the view that we should not just look at current building regulations, but ones in the future as well. We looked forward and, as a result, we are ahead of the legislation.

"More and more of our students are taking an interest in the environment and we wanted a building with a range of environmental measures. In addition, it means you spend less money on energy costs.

"A lot of it is fairly simple technology, but it is a case of seeing what is out there, does it work and is it sustainable?