Petition against Brookes plan handed to council (From Oxford Mail)

Petition against Brookes plan handed to council

6:40am Thursday 11th June 2009 in Search By Reg Little

A petition signed by 1,064 people opposing Oxford Brookes University’s plans for a new £150m campus in Headington was handed to Oxford City Council yesterday.

The signatures were collected by the Headington Hill Residents’ Association, which is spearheading a campaign to stop Brookes from developing its Gipsy Lane campus as a ‘gateway to Oxford’.

The association has won the backing of other local residents’ associations and the Oxford Civic Society, with the planning application expected to go before councillors in a few weeks’ time.

The petition called on councillors to oppose “Brookes’s relentless domination of Oxford’s residential areas by rejecting the proposed new student centre building”.

The deputy vice-chancellor of Oxford Brookes, Rex Knight, said the plans had been already modified to meet residents’ concerns about issues such as light and being overlooked.

He said: “We cannot see how we can make modifications in terms of the height of the building without seriously compromising the vision of the building.”