DEFIANT campaigners are vowing to continue opposing the Castle Mill student flats after suffering a crucial blow.

At a meeting of Oxford University’s “parliament” on Tuesday, dons snubbed a motion to reduce the height of the buildings in a vote of 210 for and 536 against.

Afterwards the motion’s author Professor Diarmaid MacCulloch and his allies said they would consider whether to call a postal ballot of members not present.

Campaigners claimed the vote had not changed anything and raised the prospect of another legal challenge.

Save Port Meadow and the Campaign to Protect Rural England (CPRE) say the Roger Dudman Way flats loom unacceptably over Oxford’s historic skyline.

An assessment commissioned by the university and released at the end of October found that 22 “heritage settings” had been damaged by the buildings.

In a statement Save Port Meadow said: “Oxford University has signalled it prefers to put its financial interest before its responsibility to Oxford’s heritage.

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“In spite of the vote, the tone of the debate shows the university is pretty ashamed of itself and rightly so. Congregation’s vote doesn’t change anything.”

The environmental impact assessment (EIA) carried out retrospectively for the university set out three options to reduce the impact of the flats.

University bosses have said they favour the first, to put up tree screening and re-paint the flats, at a cost of £6m.

But campaigners said the third option, removing the top floors from six of the eight buildings, is the only one which can reverse damage to views from Port Meadow.

After the Congregation vote, they will have to wait to see which option the university puts forward to Oxford City Council.

Council officers have said this is not likely to happen until May at the earliest. The council has asked the university to justify why it has not considered option three in more detail.

The council first granted planning permission for the £24m flats in 2012 and they were finished the following year.

CPRE Oxfordshire director Helen Marshall said the group, which bid for a judicial review of the planning permission in 2013, could still take legal action against the city council.

She added: “If due process is now followed we still feel there is little option but to remove the top floors, as a minimum.

The ball is now back in the city council’s court and we expect it to work with the university to put it right.

There are plenty of creative solutions to this problem.”

City council leader Bob Price said: “The council will be obtaining legal advice.”

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