PLANS to redevelop Ruskin College's Headington site have won the backing of city councillors.

Councillors have welcomed Ruskin's plans to transform its site in Old Headington into the college's main headquarters.

But Oxford City Council's north east area committee made clear that Dunstan Road should remain the main access point to the site. And councillors urged the college to address the concerns of residents, unhappy about moving the main entrance to Stoke Place.

Under the masterplan, the historic Rookery would be enlarged and restored and its landscaped setting improved. Buildings such as Bowen House and the Bowerman Building would be replaced by new accommodation blocks.

Almost a third of the money to be spent in Old Headington over the next three years will go on a new library and teaching area next to the listed Rookery.

Ruskin's site in Walton Street was put on the market at the end of last year, with the possibility that the college will use part of it as an outreach centre. The lease of two of its modern Worcester Place buildings will also go on the market - a student block and the Kitson Library - at an asking price of £4.5m. The money raised will help Ruskin fund the £16m redevelopment at Old Headington.

Planning constraints mean the city centre building base must be used for educational or health purposes. Three years ago plans to sell the Walton Street site and move to a newly built site in north Oxford were dropped after protests.

The college now has 500 students (full-time equivalent), of whom 140 live in college, and new student rooms will be built to the east of the Rookery.

In addition to the Rookery, acquired in 1946, the Old Headington campus also contains two other grade II-listed buildings, Stoke House, acquired in 1962, and the Crinkle Crankle wall. Stoke House has already had £330,000 spent on it.

Ruskin principal Prof Audrey Mullender earlier said: "This is the most exciting development at the college for 60 years. It will also mean that people in Old Headington will be able to enjoy our lovely Ruskin Hall campus, since our restaurant will be open to the public."

Although Ruskin College is not part of the University of Oxford, its students have a formal right to attend university lectures.

She said the headquarters would probably move to Headington from 2009, and the majority of its long courses - in subjects ranging from creative writing to women's studies, from history to youth and community work, and from law to sociology, politics and economics.

The main Ruskin College building in Walton Street was built in 1912 with money donated by the wife of one of its American founders, Amne Vrooman. It will continue to provide short residential courses and weekly drop-in programmes.

Ruskin's mission to provide education for "ordinary" people who might not have passed many exams in the past was inspired by the writings of social reformer John Ruskin.