WHERE will you find the most extensive building project in York? If the Coppergate II plans have sprung to mind, think again. The answer lies a mile or so south-east, and the work is already well underway.

York University has embarked upon the biggest redevelopment of its Heslington campus since it opened in the 1960s. An astonishing £80 million - £20 million more than the price of the proposed Coppergate Centre - is due to be spent on building new facilities and upgrading existing ones.

In the office of Ron Cooke, university vice chancellor, are plans, models and computerised impressions of how the new facilities will look. Hardly an area of the campus will be left untouched.

Over the coming months new student accommodation, a shopping centre, state-of-the-art science labs and an extended library will bring a 21st century feel to York University.

Already acknowledged as one of the best universities in the country in terms of teaching and research, some of its buildings no longer match up to modern academic aspirations. So in come the bulldozers.

"It's the biggest group of developments since the university began," said Prof Cooke.

"If you are going to be the best in teaching and research, you might as well, as we believe, provide the best environment, to attract the best staff and the best students."

It seems £80 million is the price you pay for success. "There are huge pressures for growth that come from success," Prof Cooke said. "The real need is to ensure we continue to be internationally competitive - it's a global game.

"York needs to be globally competitive if it's going to be successful in the future."

Some of the original university buildings, built using a prefabricated technique called Clasp, were in urgent need of refurbishment or replacement, he said.

"The final crucial thing in this list is we do have a strategy for creating wealth and jobs through developing what we call knowledge-based industries. The Science Park is a good example, the York Science City initiative is another."

Although it is tucked away on the outskirts of York, the university is a key player in boosting the city's prosperity. It employs 2,500 people and has a £93 million turnover. It pumps perhaps the same amount again into the local economy through spin-off companies and indirect benefits.

So it follows that growth in the university is good for the city. But the speed of the redevelopment has caught even Prof Cooke by surprise.

"The interesting thing to me is when we first developed this case, I said we probably wouldn't need it for another seven years.

"Three years later and we need it now. That's the rate of change."

The plans have got the go-ahead because the university has already managed to raise half the money it needs - £40 million. That is a success story in itself: securing funding is not easy. "It's highly competitive," Prof Cooke said. "There are over 100 universities who are trying to get sources of funding."

The greatest single source of income is £22 million from the Government's joint infrastructure fund (JIF), which pays out only to world class faculties. The cash will be used to reconfigure the biology research laboratories.

The vice chancellor said: "We wouldn't have got this funding if the biology department hadn't been known as one of the best in the world."

The department is home to the Yorkshire Cancer Research team. Here scientists have made remarkable breakthroughs in the battle against cancer in what Dr Andy Macdonald, the university's director of facilities management, describes as "what is essentially a large Portakabin".

Another major change will be the Alcuin Redevelopment. This will bring together on one site all of the university's teaching interests in the social sciences, especially health care and social policy. Next door, a £2 million bequest from the Raymond Burton fund is helping to pay for a humanities research library. Lottery money is also being sought. The state-of-the-art facility will also eventually house the Borthwick Institute of Historical Research, although a proposal to move the city archives there from York city centre has ruffled many feathers.

Meanwhile, students' expectations are higher than ever, and this is being reflected in a £20 million upgrade of student accommodation. Two thirds of York's undergraduates live in university accommodation. Five hundred new bedrooms, complete with en-suite bathrooms, will have been built by the end of the year.

The redevelopment of Wentworth as a graduate college will provide 480 study bedrooms for postgraduates overlooking the lake.

And, according to Ron Cooke, students' eating habits have changed. "They need a supermarket as well as catering," he said. "We thought the best thing to do was create one on campus."

That will form part of a commercially-funded shopping centre, to include the relocated Blackwells bookshop, a pharmacy and the student travel agency.

We still haven't reached the bottom of the list. The redevelopment plans also include a new sports pavilion, built in conjunction with CGNU. The psychology centre, home to the world's leading experts on dyslexia, will be improved making it a pleasanter place for parents and children to visit.

And an extension to the music department is planned. Prof Cooke points to the university's concert series, the Bach Choir and the Early Music Festival when he says "music is one of our major contributions to the regional and local community.

"That makes York arguably the best provided classical music city in the country outside London, and a lot of it, like the Early Music Centre, is world class."

Even when all this work is finished it is not the end of the story. The university is rapidly running out of space, Prof Cooke said. That's when all eyes turn to the planned creation of campus three, on land close to Grimston Bar.

As part of a closer relationship between the council and the university, city planners have set aside 173 acres of land for the expansion.

This is likely to prove contentious as the site is in draft green belt.

Prof Cooke insists he does not want the university to expand dramatically. At the moment it boasts 8,500 students and 24 departments; that compares to 24,000 students and 60 departments at Leeds.

But he argues that it is crucial that York University does not stand still.

"It's about maintaining excellence. The quality of our teaching is fantastic, as is the associated research.

"Quality is what matters, not quantity. We see ourselves remaining a relatively small university in a relatively small city.

"Nevertheless, as the years go by, we have to expand or else we die."

PICTURE: York University Vice Chancellor Ron Cooke, left, and Dr Andy Macdonald with plans to enhance the seat of learning