Members of the University and College Union (UCU) set up a picket line outside Cintra House in Cambridge after the Open University Council agreed upon plans to restructure the university on Tuesday.

Claimed to be designed to improve efficiency for students, many of the student support services for the Open University (OU) will be centralised into the institution’s headquarters in Milton Keynes and its two biggest regional offices in Manchester and Nottingham. Up to 502 members of staff, many of whom were on the picket lines, face losing their jobs. Many have been told that relocation is the only solution.

Cambridge is one of seven centres that will be closed under the proposals. Facilities in Bristol, Birmingham, Leeds, Gateshead, Oxford and London were shut after the closure of its office in Sussex last year. A spokesman explained that these regional centres were not providing regional services, but were responsible for certain curriculum areas. They are not visited by students frequently, they continued.

The Union Branch President for the OU, Pauline Collins, told the BBC: “Nobody wants to take strike action, but we have now been left with no alternative. The university needs to listen to our concerns and abandon these damaging proposals.”

She had previously highlighted alleged logistical issues, pointing out that staff in the Gateshead office would have a five-hour round trip of 250 miles if they were to get to their nearest centre, in Edinburgh.

“Axing over 500 staff across seven centres would be catastrophic to The Open University’s ability to provide the kind of support that students need,” she said. “We hope the university will now see sense and work with us to find a better solution for staff, students and the future of The Open University.”

The proposals were poorly received by OU employees, 50 of whom signed an open letter to the Guardian in which they argued the loss of the regional centres signalled the collapse of the institution’s “historic mission to be open to people and places everywhere in the UK”, adding: “Cheaper alternatives to the current building (the lease of which has come up for renewal) have not been properly explored.”

Meanwhile, the OU’s national centres in Belfast, Cardiff and Edinburgh are unaffected by the proposals, and the small sub-office in Dublin is also expected to remain open. The OU is also considering maintaining a centre in London, albeit a smaller and “more appropriately located” presence.

The Vice-Chancellor of the OU responded by suggesting that the decision to scrap smaller, dispersed offices facilitated “much-needed improvements” to student support services. The changes, he argued, were aimed at providing students with the “best possible experience”.

“Our priority now is to maintain and improve services for our hard-working students while supporting our staff as we start to implement these changes,”

“With developments in technology changing how we work, the student’s experience of the OU has not been limited by geography for some time,” he said. “This is a difficult decision and I fully recognise the impact it will have on many of our staff, but we cannot afford to stay still. This recommendation, if approved, would allow us to enhance student support in a way that’s simply not possible in our current office network, and offer our students the sort of support they expect and deserve.”

The OU’s press statement indicates it is “disappointed” that UCU has voted for strike action as they “do not believe industrial action will lead to anything positive,” but adds: "We recognise this is a difficult time for staff affected and we want to work positively with unions to look after staff in the best possible way.”

Further strike action is planned for Monday 7th December. The contents of the proposals are expected to have been fully implemented by February 2017.