the business school and the departments of law, politics, English and history to reach "critical research mass".
In 2018 the university announced that a consortium led by Interserve would design, build and operate two colleges at Mount Oswald (new buildings for John Snow College and one new college) for £105 million. The project company (in which the university has a 15 per cent stake) financed the construction via a £90 million 46-year bond issue. The two colleges opened in 2020. Separately, the university announced that it had raised £225 million to fund its estate masterplan through the private sale of long-term bonds to British and US investors. In 2021 it was reported that there was a culture of sexism and bullying at Durham, and that the university had been reluctant to address structural problems, thereby enabling this culture to develop relatively unchallenged.
== Campus ==
Durham University owns a 257 ha (640-acre) estate of which 251 ha (620 acres) is in Durham. This contains part of the Durham Castle and Cathedral UNESCO World Heritage Site and multiple other heritage assets including three ancient monuments (the Maiden Castle Iron Age promontory fort, Cosin's Library and Divinity House), four grade I listed buildings (including Kingsgate Bridge, the Exchequer Building on Palace Green, the gatehouse, keep, north range and west range of Durham Castle, and multiple listings covering surviving sections of the castle walls around the north of the castle and along the top of the river bank behind Hatfield College and St Cuthbert's Society) and 79 grade II or II* listed buildings. As of 2023, the estate
in Durham includes 112 ha (280 acres) of woodland scrub (with 46 ha (110 acres) of woodland designated as Areas of High Landscape Value, including the 32.4 ha (80 acres) of Great High Wood, Hollingside Wood and Blaid's Wood additionally designated as Ancient Semi-Natural Woodlands, Sites of Nature Conservation Importance and Sites of Ecological Value), 53 ha (130 acres) of farming and grazing land, and 27 …
