Education secretary Charles Clarke this week opened a £4 million complex of laboratories at the University of Greenwich, Medway.

The facilities include laboratories for sports science, materials science and molecular biology.

The campus already boasts a robotics centre, a computer-aided design studio and a satellite technology base. Some 2,000 students study at the campus, which is based in a converted Royal Naval barracks at Chatham Maritime.

The laboratories are part of a plan to expand the site in collaboration with the University of Kent and Mid-Kent College.

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The three partners are working with the Medway Unitary Authority and the South East England Development Agency to create a joint campus and develop courses for further and higher education students.

Kent is transferring its provision to the Medway campus from its base at the Mid-Kent College at Horsted and Bridge Warden's College.

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It is hoped that by 2010, the campus will cater for some 6,000 students ranging from those in further education to postgraduates.

It will serve a local population of about 250,000 and will offer everything from access-level courses up to PhD-level study.

The region is a ripe recruiting ground. The Medway area was hit economically when the Royal Dockyards closed in 1984 and it has a higher than average unemployment rate for the Southeast.

The 1991 census also found that the Medway towns of Chatham, Rochester and Gillingham had a graduate population of 3.8 per cent compared with a national average of 7.2 per cent.

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