Nurses and key workers have been hit with a £950 council tax bill each - even though they have just one room to them- selves.

Just before Christmas, all people staying in Arthur Sanctuary House, which is key worker accommodation on the John Radcliffe Hospital site in Headington, Oxford, received a council tax bill classing each bedroom in the four bedroom flats, which have shared facilities, as an individual Band A flat - the lowest rated band.

Previously they paid just £420 a year, as part of their monthly rent to A2 Housing, which owns the properties.

Sarah Ferguson, 29, a paediatric nurse, said: "I only live in one room, but they have decided to charge each of our rooms individually for the whole year.

"We haven't been given any justification for why they have counted our rooms as four individual flats - and we want to make people aware of what is happening.

"We are pretty angry about it."

Miss Ferguson moved into the key worker accommodation because she did not believe she could afford to live in the private sector. She, along with many of her friends, is now planning to move out.

She said: "It's not self-contained. I don't have any facilities in my own room so how can that possibly be a flat? This is supposed to be subsidised accommodation, which at £350 a month isn't that cheap anyway.

"Everybody I have spoken to is going to move out because it's not providing the service that it's supposed to.

"Nurses don't make the hugest amounts of money."

Arthur Sanctuary House is made up of 116 single rooms divided into 29 flats with shared facilities, four one-bedroom flats and one two-bedroom flats.

A2 Housing has appealed against the Valuation Office Agency's reassessment.

Head of key worker accommodation Rachael Fry said: "We provide a number of similar affordable housing schemes for local key workers.

"The low rent and council tax levels make the housing affordable and we are concerned that increases in council tax will alienate the area's vital key workers.

"Following our appeal the Valuation Office will be visiting Arthur Sanctuary House on Wednesday to carry out a further assessment and meet with members of our key worker team."

A spokesman for the Valuation Office Agency, VOA, said: "The fact that a unit shares common services and cannot be sold on its own does not prevent it from being classed as self-contained and therefore liable for a council tax band."

She said the VOA was currently looking into the "banding situation" at Arthur Sanctuary House following the appeal.