AN under-fire university has hit back at claims of a “lack of leadership and lack of responsibility”, after more than 1,000 of its students tested positive for Covid-19 in a week.

Newcastle University confirmed on Thursday afternoon that there were 1,003 new coronavirus cases among students and 12 in staff between October 1 and 7.

The Newcastle branch of the University and Colleges Union (UCU) have accused management of failing to take health and safety responsibilities “sufficiently seriously” and said the outbreak was “entirely predictable and preventable”.

University bosses have now issued a response, saying it had “worked tirelessly” to ensure a safe return of students to the city.

They also said they hope to return to face-to-face teaching “in the coming weeks”, after moving classes online due to the major Covid outbreak.

A Newcastle University spokeswoman said: “The university has worked tirelessly over the past few months to ensure our campus is Covid-secure and ready for colleagues and students to return safely to campus.

“Trade union representatives have been a key part of our Emergency Management Team which has met regularly over the past six months to ensure the health, safety and wellbeing of our whole university community remains our number one priority.

“We have a team of highly trained and experienced occupational health and safety and business continuity advisors who have developed and implemented a range of measures and guidelines to control the risk of transmission of Covid-19.

“As a result, many teams are already back on campus, keeping the university open and conducting face-to-face teaching for courses such as medicine and dentistry.

“Like many universities, we have seen a significant rise in the number of cases among our students. The overwhelming majority of these cases are from infections acquired within social and residential settings and we have no evidence to date that there is any transmission in ‘on campus’ work environments.”

Both Newcastle and Northumbria universities moved teaching online from Thursday, aside from courses where in-person teaching is essential.

Those changes, which were a move to tier three of the Department for Education’s Covid guidelines, will initially last for a period of three weeks and will be reviewed on Friday, October 23.

The spokesperson added: “The time spent teaching our students is what drives so many of us to do this job and where present-in-person teaching is no longer possible, we know many colleagues are working hard to ensure that sessions are delivered live so that we retain the face-to-face element.

“Pulling together as one community is so important at this current time – not just for our students but also to ensure that we support each other and recognise that many colleagues have worked on campus, supporting our students and one another, throughout this pandemic.

“We are fully committed to working with UCU and hope that we will be able to return to Tier 2 in the coming weeks.”

In a statement on Thursday night, the UCU’s Newcastle University branch claimed the university had “refused to provide necessary information about the extent of the outbreak” and “not conducted appropriately detailed risk assessments”.

A further 619 cases of coronavirus among students were also confirmed by Northumbria University on Thursday.