A FORMER Poet Laureate has thrown his support behind the campaign to save Wales’ oldest university.

Sir Andrew Motion said the threat to the campus at Lampeter was ‘shocking and sad news’, and he hoped it could be reversed.

Sir Andrew, who was Poet Laureate from 1999 to 2009, has signed a petition calling on University of Wales Trinity St David’s (UWTSD) and the Welsh Government to create a ‘viable, sustainable plan for the long- term future of the Lampeter campus.’

He said he had visited the university ‘a long time ago’ to read some of his poems.

“But I remember feeling, and would still feel, that the relative seclusion of the campus, combined with its antiquity, gave it a mood of focused concentration that immediately seemed of great benefit to the students and made it a place where past and present could meet in illuminating ways,” he said.

“This is shocking and sad news and I’ve signed the petition while sending my strong hope that the decision to close the campus can be reversed.”

The Poet Laureate is a honorary title given to a poet whose work is considered to be of national significance, with the monarch appointing them on the advice of the Prime Minister.

The position dates back to 1616, when King James 1 granted a pension to Ben Johnson and became an official royal position in 1668.

The future of Lampeter’s university campus has been thrown into doubt after almost 200 years of higher education by a proposal by UWTSD to relocate remaining humanities courses to its Carmarthen campus from next September.

The petition, which is being organised by the Lampeter Society, a group connecting alumni of the university, has been signed so far by more than 3,200 people online, with another 1,000 signing paper versions.

The petition can be found here.

University of Wales Trinity Saint David said when announcing its plans to move courses to Carmarthen, said: “The context to the proposal is that in its 2022-23 Financial Accounts the university posted a deficit of £11m.

“Despite a range of innovative ideas to develop new courses to attract a larger number of students to our Lampeter campus these have not delivered, there has been a steady decline in the number of students being taught in-person.

“We now have a total cohort of 197 full-time students, 92 of which are undergraduates, being taught on campus in Lampeter, with 112 core staff and a number of casual staff associated with the Lampeter campus. This is not a sustainable situation, and the University must take action.

“In addition, there is also a large number of buildings that are not fully utilised.

“Operationally, the Lampeter campus costs us about £2.7M per year to run and the backlog maintenance and compliance costs for the campus are estimated at £33.5M (which is subject to inflation).

“The university is, however, committed to retaining the main Lampeter campus estate and finding alternative ways of delivering education-related activities that would give this campus a new lease of life and a more secure future."