The University of Nottingham has officially thanked Nottinghamshire Fire and Rescue Service for keeping the community safe during the fire at Jubilee Campus.

The Chancellor, Sir Andrew Witty, presented the Chancellor’s Award to Deputy Chief Fire Officer Wayne Bowcock in recognition of the outstanding work by firefighters in containing September’s huge blaze at the GlaxoSmithKline Sustainable Chemistry Laboratory.

It is the first time the medal, which was created to recognise exceptional contributions to the University, has been given. As well as the award and certificate of recognition, £20,000 has been donated to The Fire Fighters’ Charity.

Mr Bowcock said: “It’s a great honour to receive this on behalf of the service. It’s an absolute tragedy to lose the building and the crews were aghast when they got there and we realised there was little we could do to save it. The priority then was people’s safety and there were some significant challenges for us to protect the surroundings and keep people safe.”

Dr Paul Greatrix, Registrar at the University, said: “We would like to show our appreciation to the Fire Service for its exceptional response to the fire and for helping to prevent the loss of any other buildings and ensuring no loss of life. We are also extremely grateful for their thorough investigation and subsequent report which will allow us to proceed with rebuilding and to continue with our ambition to complete this landmark development.”

Sir Andrew is pictured presenting the award to Notts Fire and Rescue’s Deputy Chief Fire Officer Wayne Bowcock, with, from left, Deputy Vice-Chancellor Professor Karen Cox, Group Manager Jo Wooler-Ward and Operations Commander, Station Manager Phil Revill.