PLANS to replace a care home in North Oxford and convert the old building into student accommodation have been recommended for approval.

University College and Fairfield Residential Home have proposed moving 29 elderly residents into a new 38-bedroom building on the home’s Banbury Road site, housing 29 students in the old one.

Six new student homes to house a further 30 undergraduates would also be built.

The scheme was proposed because staff fear the home could fail future inspections and say newer facilities are needed.

As reported in the Oxford Mail, the firm behind designs for the scheme – Oxford Architects – said elderly residents of the care home and students could share “chance encounters” in the garden spaces.

Now planning officers at Oxford City Council have said the scheme should go ahead.

But residents nearby fear it will be out of keeping with the North Oxford Victorian Suburb conservation area.

Criticisms centre on the new care home building, which some have said will be overbearing and invade privacy of neighbouring properties, and there are concerns that the area is being slowly overtaken by college and university buildings.

There are also fears of increased traffic, with a total 18 parking spaces included in the scheme.

The Friends of the North Oxford Victorian Conservation Area has called for the development to be scaled back, writing in a letter to the city council: “Development should be proportionate to the site and should not result in substantial harm to the area.”

St Margaret’s city councillor Liz Wade said the development was at “the heart of the conservation area”.

She added: “If we don’t protect it in our generation, the North Oxford Conservation Area will join the dodo as an exhibit in the University Museum.

“I don’t think this is the right place or the right framework for such a development.”

The plans have also been described as “neither ambitious, nor sensitive enough” for the site by the London-based Design Council, the Government’s advisor on design.

The Victorian group of the Oxfordshire Architectural and Historical Society states: “The effects of such a large development would be seriously damaging to an area already overdeveloped by institutions.”

But in a report to councillors on the west area planning committee, council officer Felicity Byrne said the care home would not damage the conservation area.

She wrote: “The development would provide a purpose-built residential home which meets the needs of a mixed community.

“It represents an efficient use of brownfield land and would not be harmful to the character and appearance of the conservation area or adjacent neighbours. Officers therefore recommend that planning permission is granted, subject to conditions.”

In a statement to the city council, University College and Fairfield Residential Home defended the scheme. Their agent Kemp & Kemp wrote: “The application is a high-quality design that, with the materials proposed, is fully acceptable at this location.”