UNIVERSITY bosses have put forward plans to screen a student flats development by Port Meadow with trees but ruled out reducing its height.

Oxford University yesterdaypublished a long-awaited environmental impact assessment on its Castle Mill development.

It wants to put trees around the western side of the development – completed last summer – and change its colour and texture. The measure would cost £6m.

Campaigners have said the buildings – for 312 students – block views of the city from Port Meadow and called for a height reduction.

University director of estates Paul Goffin said: “The university continues to believe the benefits the development has brought to the Oxford housing market remain of prime importance when considering its impact.

“At the same time, the university has continued to seek ways to mitigate the visual impact of the accommodation when viewed from Port Meadow.

“It is proposing additional measures to blend [the buildings] in better with the surrounding area.

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The university is a charity and believes proposals to alter the height of the buildings or the structure of the roofs would require large and unacceptable expenditure of its funding. We believe this approach represents the best option to balance environmental sensitivities, financial responsibility and pressure on the Oxford housing market.”

A seven-week consultation on the Roger Dudman Way proposals has now begun.

The Save Port Meadow campaign said volunteers would now study the report in depth.

Spokesman Toby Porter said: “The first option is woefully inadequate and just recycling ideas first floated 18 months ago. It is patently insufficient to undo the harm caused by Oxford University by their own shoddy, careless design and botched public consultation.”

Oxford City Council approved the plans in 2012 but the Campaign to Protect Rural England took the case to the High Court and called for a judicial review.

Mr Justice Lewis ruled a review was unnecessary because the university had volunteered to complete a EIA after the flats were built.

Yesterday the extensive study – understood to be some 1,000 pages long – was delivered to the council’s St Aldate’s offices. It has been prepared by Nicholas Pearson Associates on behalf of the university.

The report will be discussed by a council planning committee.

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