THE FUTURE of housing in Oxford may not lie in building on the ground but extending upwards, a Headington resident has said.

Economist Charles Young has crunched through decades of data to pen The City That Won't Grow Up, a pamphlet suggesting a radical solution for the housing crisis.

Using the Spanish city of Barcelona as a comparison, it calls for medium-rise apartment blocks to be built.

It's message is "Oxford’s land may be scarce, but the air above it isn’t."

Mr Young said: "I am chairman of a group in Headington looking into transport and realised the problems we have are the other side of the coin of housing problems."

According to the 2011 census, 99,423 people were working in Oxford but only 57,494 live within the city– meaning at least 40,000 commute into Oxford every day.

The pamphlet says rising house prices have forced many into cheaper homes outside the city, concluding: "Oxford’s traffic problems thus originate in its housing problems."

But in fact, Mr Young said medium-rise flats popular in many European cities could comfortably increase the city's population to about 600,000.

He said: "We don't need to have skyscrapers or tower blocks, but just to go a little bit higher.

"Oxford has a stock of relatively large houses, but the problem is that people can no longer afford large houses."

He added new builds could be made to look as visually "striking" as those in Barcelona and there would be a knock-on effect making the city greener.

Michael Tyce, chairman of the Campaign to Protect Rural England (CPRE), said the idea had merit but Oxford was "basically unsuitable" for upward development.

He said: "Although the tower blocks of the 60s were higher, they had to be surrounded by open land for car parking; it's a ratio.

"Oxford also is a jewel of listed buildings that are important to the economy of the city. You would have to be careful where you sited them."

He said he believed the "medieval" layout meant that traffic would fundamentally be a problem unless the Oxford University colleges were destroyed, and terraced housing at a higher density - for instance, 75 houses to the hectare - would actually be more effective.

But he added: "What the CPRE has always said is that the answer to the housing crisis is to stop creating more jobs. The city has full employment anyway."

Oxford City Council spokesman Tom Jennings said: “Taller buildings can work well in certain places and where designed well. The council’s policies require developers to make efficient use of land, which will sometimes mean building several storeys upwards.

“However, Oxford’s historic skyline with its ‘Dreaming Spires’ is a world-renowned iconic feature of the city and a setting that affords views of this skyline is all-important. "Oxford also has 18 Conservation Areas, which together cover a significant area of the city. Oxford’s special character is unique and irreplaceable: it is crucial therefore that it is protected and enhanced. This means that it is not always appropriate to build higher than the surrounding area."

He added a "balanced mix" of housing types was needed for older people and people with disabilities, so some types of high-rise accommodation was not suitable.

The City That Won't Grow Up is published by the Headington Press, costing £3. For more information email charles.young@virginmedia.com