Today marks 60 years since the Lockwood Report preferred Coleraine over Derry

Sixty years ago to this day, February 10, 1965, John Lockwood’s report on higher education in the North recommended that a second university be located in Coleraine rather than Derry.

Leaked details of the report in late 1964 about the recommendation to reject a site in Magee while having a site in Coleraine—a town of 15,000 at the time—provoked an angry reaction that resulted in a cross-community campaign, culminating in a motorcade to Stormont.

This resulted in the formation of a cross-community ‘University for Derry Campaign,’ chaired by John Hume.

This campaign for a university in Derry was led by the unionist mayor Albert Anderson, Eddie McAteer, leader of the Nationalist Party, and John Hume, who would become leader of the SDLP.

A demonstration involving a motorcade of over 1,000 vehicles travelled from Derry to Stormont; however, this protest and the 1965 campaign for a university in Derry would ultimately have no impact on the decision. However, Northern Ireland Prime Minister Terence O’Neill ensured that Magee was not closed, with it joining the New University of Ulster in 1969. 

Sir John Lockwood, an educationalist from England who had set up universities in Africa, had been brought in by the Stormont government in 1963 to examine the provision of third-level education in Northern Ireland.

Lockwood formed a committee with seven others to deliver their findings; they had been given a six-month window, but this process would ultimately take two years.

It was abundantly clear to him that the country needed a second university, and so the committee began to look for possible locations.

Derry’s Magee campus was one of the options explored, with the college existing in Derry since 1865, but it was in drastic need of reformation, while lobby groups in Coleraine, Armagh, and Craigavon also wanted the honour of being the city to host Northern Ireland’s second university after Queen’s University Belfast.

The Lockwood Report ultimately would nominate Coleraine as the best suitor to meet their criteria, giving numerous reasons as to why they considered Derry was not suitable.

A major disadvantage was the lack of a suitable student accommodation in Derry, with few lodgings available, meaning the need to develop expensive halls of residence while the city was facing a major housing crisis at the time, while Coleraine argued that summer guesthouses and flats in Portrush and Portstewart would save money regarding this issue, as the Treasury was restricting funds UK-wide for purpose-built student residences.

Another reason was the option of expansion around Coleraine due to the area being proposed, allowing for further development; while there was a proposal from agriculture minister Harry West to situate a university on the outskirts of Derry as a compromise, this was rejected.

The location of Coleraine was also viewed as a compromise to Derry by the report, due to its close proximity to the city, with it being located in a County Derry town, believing this would soothe hurt feelings and attract some support, while it could bring about positive industrial and economic growth in the area should the university be located near the north coast of Northern Ireland. 

Ultimately the New University of Ulster was founded in 1968 in Coleraine upon the recommendation of the Lockwood report in 1965, with Magee College being incorporated into the university in 1969, making Coleraine the primary campus of a multi-centre university.

Sixty years on, and there is still no independent university in Derry, with Magee campus still being part of Ulster University, but there continues to be movement towards expansion; in December 2024, the Magee Taskforce released their report on how the campus could expand the campus to allow for 10,000 students to attend by the end of the 2033 academic year.