PLANS for 78 student rooms in Green Belt land are set to be approved by Oxford City Council.

St Catherine's College has proposed the three-storey 'pavilion-style' buildings along with a graduate centre on its site off Manor Road.

The project to build the new accommodation will finish the development of almost eight acres of land, which the University's youngest college originally acquired from Merton College in 1960.

The land where new buildings are proposed was originally set aside for a lecture theatre but St Catherine's said it no longer needed this.

Its total student population is 954 students, of which 407 are graduates. The college said 56 per cent currently have to rent privately elsewhere in the city and it wanted to reduce this.

Council planning chiefs agreed and said the harm to the Green Belt would be limited and that the public benefits from the development were considered 'very special circumstances'.

The proposed three-storey graduate centre - but lower than the accommodation - would also include a seminar room and common room.

Oxford City Council's west area planning committee have been recommended to approve the scheme when it meets at Town Hall at 6pm on Tuesday.