An Italian university is set to establish a campus in Wye after taking over a £3 million former rehab centre.

Withersdane Hall, off Coldharbour Lane, went on the market in February and has been snapped up by the University of Niccolò Cusano Studies.

A planning application submitted by the institution in June seeks to bring the Grade-I listed building back into educational use.

About 250 students, mainly from Italy and France, are expected to be taught at the hall which has served as a Wye College campus and an addiction rehabilitation centre.

The university's application seeks to change the wording of a previous change of use submission in 2014, which permitted the use of three buildings "for the benefit of Wye College only".

The attached planning statement says: "The officer’s reports clarified the conditions were imposed at a time when Wye College was a functioning education institution, which was no longer the case, and the conditions were imposed to ensure that no more intensive uses would operate from the site.

"The clinic use and the proposed education use fall within a C2 use and as such planning permission is not required for the proposed use.

"The education use will commence in January 2020. However, the use of three of the buildings on the site are restricted by conditions that prevent any other use taking over the C2 use, without prior consent.

"It is clear from the decisions in 2014 that the reason for the restrictive conditions was ‘so the council can review and control traffic levels from any other user in the future’."

The report seeks to calm fears of an increase in road traffic to the site, saying it will be similar to that of the previous rehab clinic's.

The University of Niccolò Cusano Studies was founded in Rome in 2006 and owns the Serie B football team Ternana Calcio.

Its only current British campus is the NCI University in London, situated on the Isle of Dogs.

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