OFFICE buildings completed just over a year ago could be demolished for student accommodation at an old bus depot site.

Nearly 100 student rooms could be built at the Reliance Way site after plans were submitted to Oxford City Council for a four-storey block.

The three-storey office buildings there currently, Adams House and Rivera House, built by Berkley Homes, were the last part of a depot site to be developed when it was completed last year.

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Cantay Estates is now seeking to have the site changed from business use to residential.

The matter is being considered by the Planning Inspectorate after Oxford City Council appealed against the Cantay bid.

Cantay Estates has now submitted plans to demolish the office buildings and build student accommodation instead.

Director Tony Nolan said: “We started looking at alternative options to residential use. There is already student accommodation at the rear so it makes sense to expand. It’s also in an area of demand for students.

“But we will be retaining Canterbury House, which has historical value. The intention is to keep it.”

Red brick Victorian building Canterbury House was the home and studio of Henry Taunt, one of Victorian England’s most prolific photographers.

A blue plaque on the Cowley Road frontage commemorates the link.

The design and access statement for the outline planning application read: “The development presents an opportunity to utilise the rather austere elevation of the existing student accommodation building to produce a courtyard development closed on all four sides, retaining Canterbury House as a management office.”

Buses finally left the old garage in September 2004, when the Oxford Bus Company moved from the site it had occupied for 80 years, to a new depot in Watlington Road. The site was then built on by Berkeley Homes.

Plans for the final phase of the Berkeley Homes project – which originally included 106 student rooms in five blocks, business space and car parking spaces – were given the go-ahead in 2010.

In June 2012 an east area planning committee allowed Berkeley Homes to add six more student rooms, bringing the total to 112. Work was finished in 2013.

Berkley Homes told the Oxford Mail it was no longer responsible for the site.

Oxford City Council failed to comment.

Consultation for the outline planning application is open until January 9. Comments can be made via oxford.gov.uk/planningapplications.

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