Headington student flats proposal revived (From The Oxford Times)

Headington student flats proposal revived

6:00pm Thursday 28th October 2010 in News By Reg Little

The Dorset House site in London Road, Headington

PLANS are being drawn up to house more than 300 students at a development in Headington.

The proposed group of three and four-storey buildings would accommodate students from Oxford Brookes University.

Berkeley Homes has acquired the Dorset House site, off London Road between Latimer Road and Lime Walk, from the property company Quintain.

Berkeley is understood to have paid about £5m for the land, where a large Victorian house has been demolished and most of the site has been cleared.

Residents’ groups have protested in recent months that parts of Oxford are being overwhelmed by students, claiming that the numbers in multi-occupied houses were adding to the city’s chronic housing shortages.

But Berkeley Homes said that the new accommodation would see more students taken out of the private rental sector into dedicated purpose-built accommodation.

A number of blocks will be built around a courtyard.

A surviving building at 42 London Road is to be incorporated into the scheme. Dorset House used to accommodate Oxford Brookes’ University’s physiotherapy department.

Andrew Saunders-Davies, chairman of Berkeley’s Oxford and Chilterns division, said: “We’re in the process of discussing the scheme with residents’ groups, with a view to submitting a planning application shortly.”

Tony Joyce, the chairman of Oxford Civic Society and a spokesman for residents’ groups in the area, said: “In terms of assessing the impact on the local community, it’s still early days.

“In general, problems with any student hall of residence come when they’re not actually on campus.”

A proposal to build flats to house more than 360 students on the site was withdrawn by previous owners Quintain four years ago, after a scathing report on the design by city council planning officers.