PLANNERS gave the go-ahead for the state-of-the-art riverside campus planned for Newport city centre.

The £35 million development, which will be glazed on both sides, is set to join the Riverfront Theatre and Arts Centre as another landmark building on the banks of the Usk.

The new University of Wales, Newport campus will mean the return to the city centre of the School of Art, Media and Design, which produced many well-known artists in its previous location at the now derelict building in Clarence Place in the 1960s and 1970s.

Newport council leader Bob Bright welcomed the return of a "lively art culture" to the city centre.

The proposed site between the new footbridge and Castle Bingo in Usk Way, currently a council-owned public car park, will also be the new base for Newport Business School.

This week the council's planning committee unanimously approved two applications for the scheme: an outline plan and a more detailed proposal for the first of three phases of the riverside development.

Chairman of Newport planning committee, Trevor Watkins, praised the project for its "excellent design".

"There is a tremendous amount of glass and this promotes the visual aspects of the building," he added.

The proposed facilities in the School of Media, Art and Design will include labs for computer games design, performing arts and lecture theatres, studios, gallery space and a national photographic archive.

The building will provide 12,000 square metres of floor space spread over five floors.

It will be 126 metres long, 37 metres at its widest point, with the highest point at 26 metres.

The centrepiece will be a timber-clad 'hothouse' with a roof terrace on top and external spiral staircases at the sides.

There will be parking spaces for 21 cars and 150 bicycles.

The campus, due to open in September 2010, is part of a £50 million masterplan for redevelopment proposed by the university for the riverside area of the city.

The existing Allt-yr-yn campus will be sold to part-fund the scheme with the rest of the funding coming from Newport council, Newport Unlimited and the National Assembly.

The other campus at Caerleon will remain.