Professor Gillian Evans, the same academic whose complaints about the University Library's potential renaming have made headlines this week, has also commented publicly about plans to install a lift in the Combination Room on the Old Museums Site.

Evans told the Cambridge Evening News, "It is probably the oldest room in the central university buildings, and it was where the discussions of the Regent Masters in the Middle Ages were held. There is no sense of the 800 years of history."

“Regent House could call for the work to stop. Cambridge has a governing body of 4,000 academics and they can stop anything like this. Regent House has slumbered for years, but every so often it opens an eye and wakes up.”

A university spokesman said, “Under the Disability Discrimination Act the university is legally bound to provide access for the disabled to its buildings.”