Bedford campus
About the Bedford campus
The Bedford campus has lots of green open spaces while being very 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.
In the Campus Centre you can find both of the campus Theatres as well as the main campus Café while in the surrounding buildings you can find our Physical Education and Sport Science Centre which was used to train athletes in the 2012 Olympics, Teacher Education Centre, four dance studios, campus gym, our four-storey campus library and a newly refurbished Students' Union social space that holds a variety of student events such as pub quizzes, live music and various themed club nights.
Gateway Building
The Gateway Building located at the entrance of the Bedford campus holds a wide range of facilities including the main reception, student information desk, a café on the ground floor, large lecture theatres as well as a range of study rooms & breakout spaces on all floors.
Part of the University's 'greening of the campus' initiative, the £25m investment in 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'.
Campus Centre
The Bedford Campus Centre holds the large 280 seat professional theatre on the ground floor and the 80 seat studio theatre on the first floor as well as a box office just inside the entrance where students, staff and the wider community can get tickets for the variety of student performances that are held by our School of Media & Performance
Also on the ground floor is the main campus café which offers a wide variety of tasty food & drink and is a great social space for meeting friends and group working.
Sports Science Labs
Our specialist labs give students a fantastic environment to develop their research skills and expertise, where a student can explore the biology of an elite athlete who could be performing simultaneously within the sports hall.
The state-of-the-art laboratories are purpose built for research and teaching in the fields of exercise and nutrition science. This includes specialised equipment and facilities for assessing human health risk and delivering exercise and diet interventions for health promotion.
Teacher Education Centre
The teacher education centre is set out over a number of blocks on campus containing realistic mock classrooms for students to learn and train within. As part of this our Forest School also provides the opportunity for teachers to be trained in outdoor learning and 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.
Sports Hall & Fields
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.
Alongside the large sports hall the campus is surrounded by sports fields and a multi-use games area for the University's Sport and Physical Education degree students.
Campus Library
The Bedford Campus Library set over four storeys offers students access to our extensive range of physical and digital resources with 300,000+ books & 80,000+ ebooks.
PCs are provided on each level for students to use offering access to a wide range of applications as well as access to group-work areas and presentation-practice rooms and a dedicated silent study floor.
Bedford location
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.
Directions
Full campus address
- From the north, leave the M1 at Junction 14.
- Take the A422, following signs for Bedford.
- From the south leave the M1 at junction 13, then follow the A421 to Bedford.
- From the A1, south of St Neots, take the A428 to Bedford.
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.
Our Bedford Campus is very close to the centre of town being only 15 minutes by bicycle from the train station using the A4280.
On campus there is parking for bicycles outside the Campus Centre.
See www.sustrans.org.uk for more details on cycle routes and maps.
Total Parking Solutions (TPS) is authorised by University of Bedfordshire to operate parking enforcement across our car parks. TPS is a member of the British Parking Association Approved Operator Scheme and follows the BPA agreed code of practice. TPS install signage setting out the terms and conditions of parking, issue parking charges for a breach of those terms and conditions and recover parking charges.
All students and visitors will need to pay to park at the Bedford Campus: You can apply for a monthly permit or pay the advertised tariff charges.
To sign up for the monthly parking scheme please email carparking@beds.ac.uk where you will be sent a link to register for parking.
Q: How do I pay for parking?
A: If you are signing up for the monthly permit scheme you will need to enter payment details once your application has been approved. Please note just adding billing information will not authorise total parking to take payments for the permit you have applied for. Click the “my permits and applications” section of the site and click on the £ symbol to pay now. Please make sure you application is marked as active before you park onsite.
If you are not signing up for the permit scheme you will need to pay the daily tariff charges, please scan the QR code on the tariff boards with your smart phone and select the length of parking you need and pay the charges shown.
Students permits will last a set amount of time and once these have expired, a new permit will need to be purchased.
Payments can be made by visiting totalpark.uk enter the location code 1300. You can then pay for the length of time you need and adjust the start time to reflect when you arrived.
If you have issues with monthly permits, please contact carparking@beds.ac.uk. For all issues with paying the daily tariff charges please contact Total Parking Solutions on 01536 680107 info@totalparking.co.uk
Parking charges are applicable 24 hours a day 7 days a week.
You can cancel your monthly permits at any point. Refunds for part months cannot be given. To cancel your permit sign into your account at totalpark.cloud
Permits can be put on hold however they will remain active for the remainder of the billing cycle. Refunds for part months cannot be given. Please remember to reinstate your permit and authorise payments before parking on our site. To place your permit on hold or reinstate a permit please email carparking@beds.ac.uk
The University runs a free shuttle bus for staff and students from Bedford train station to the campus.
Download Bedford Bus Timetable 2024/2025 - term time [PDF]
Download Bedford Bus Timetable 2024/2025 - skeleton service [PDF]