HEALTH bosses have backed a drive for more key worker housing in the city after Oxford University revealed plans for 1,000 staff homes.

Oxford University Hospitals Trust (OUHT) yesterday warned that nursing staff and specialists were struggling to afford homes close to the hospitals where they worked.

There are concerned a shortage of housing is pricing out so-called ‘key workers’, with fears also raised that soaring rents are putting off jobseekers.

Yesterday, Carl Jenkinson, the trust’s deputy director of workforce, said: “We would support the provision of more key worker housing in Oxford, which would help many of our staff who can’t afford housing within reasonable commutable distance of the trust.”

Oxford City Council is considering changes to its housing rules to make it easier for employers of so-called key workers – such as university researchers, nurses and emergency responders – to build homes for staff.

The city council is being lobbied by OU and several colleges, who this week said a loosening of requirements for affordable housing would allow them to build 1,000 homes for staff. They say the housing shortage threatens Oxford’s position as a world leader in scientific research.

Plans to build homes for staff cannot succeed without changes to city housing rules, they said.

Professor William James, the university’s pro Vice-Chancellor for planning, said: “The priority is to have accommodation for our workers where the commute to the centre is easy and sustainable. This key group amounts to about 2,000 people.

“We would not be thinking about providing for all of them, but you would think there could be a market for 1,000 units in Oxford.”

City council leader Bob Price said: “We have to be careful about what is defined as a key worker and make sure land owned by their employers is the focus for the housing – we would not want it to apply to all land.”

The review of city council policy could mean changing a rule which currently says half of the homes in new housing developments must be ‘affordable’.

Oxford University says this makes building homes for staff – which do not currently count towards the affordable quota – too expensive. It is lobbying for a change that would allow it to be exempt from the rule.