A SECOND city centre hospital site is to be redeveloped, with Keble College unveiling a £45m scheme to create a modern new campus between the Woodstock and Banbury roads.

Keble yesterday submitted a planning application to build on the site of the former private hospital, the Acland, which Keble acquired four years ago in a £10.75m deal.

Today The Oxford Times can offer the first glimpse of one of the biggest college schemes in recent history, with the development creating a new Oxford college quad with sunken gardens, along with a new public route linking Banbury and Woodstock roads.

The Keble development will have frontages on both roads, and will be just across the road from the £500m campus that Oxford University is creating on the Radcliffe Infirmary site.

It will provide accommodation for 250 Keble students, along with seminar rooms and a new multi-disciplinary research facility, created close to the Royal Oak pub.

The public route for pedestrians and cyclists will run along the site’s northern boundary with St Anne’s College. With a street being planned across the Radliffe Infirmary site, pedestrians and cyclists will ultimately be offered a new route, running right from the Oxford University Press building on Walton Street to the University Parks.

The five-storey buildings are designed by Rick Mather Architects, which is also working on the £2.1m auditorium being built by Corpus Christi College.

The Acland site is close to Keble College, which stands opposite the Natural History Museum. And this second hospital site development will add to the growing conviction that Oxford University’s centre of gravity is set to shift northwards.

The Acland Hospital would be demolished, with Felstead House, the oldest building on the site, dating from the 1860s, to be retained. The former hospital car park on Banbury Road will become a sunken garden, overlooked by a glazed atrium. Many of the new buildings on the site will also be sunken in what is a familiar feature of Rick Mather’s work, with a water ‘stream’ feature flowing along one side of what will be one of the first Oxford quads of the 21st century.

Keble bursar Roger Bolden said: “We think it will bring a significant improvement to Banbury Road. Keble has no wish to increase student numbers. But our aim is to be able to house 90 per cent of our students in college accommodation.”

To help combat the shortage of housing in the city, Oxford City Council has told the university that it wants to see the number of full-time students living in private accommodation cut to 3,000 in coming years.

Mr Boden added: “The site is in a marvellous position. Keble will be the bridge between the new home for the humanities, being created on the Radcliffe site, and the university science area. We now have many young academics who say they cannot afford to buy homes in Oxford. They need to have college accommodation. ”

The college hopes that building work could start in the second half of 2012. The size of the application means it will go to the city council’s strategic development committee.

Keble is planning to launch a major appeal to help fund the scheme.

The Acland closed following the development of the Manor Hospital on Oxford United's former ground in Headington.