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

A planning application to build on the site of the Acland Hospital was submitted today. The project is set to become one of the biggest college development schemes in recent history, creating a new Oxford college quad with sunken gardens, along with a new public route linking Banbury and Woodstock roads.

The development will have frontages on both roads and will sit opposite the £500m campus that Oxford University is creating on the Radcliffe Infirmary site.

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

The 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 Radcliffe Infirmary site, pedestrians and cyclists will ultimately be offered a new route, running right from the Oxford University Press building on Walton Street to University Parks.

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

The Acland closed as a private hospital with the development of the Manor Hospital on Oxford United’s former ground in Headington in 2004.

The 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 in Banbury Road will become a sunken garden, overlooked by a glazed atrium.

Many of the new buildings on the site will also be sunken, with a water 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. Our aim is to be able to house 90 per cent of our students in college accommodation.”

About 80 students are currently housed on the Acland site, allowing the college to sell 11 nearby houses – which helped fund the cost of buying the 1.7-acre hospital site.

To help combat the chronic shortage of housing in the city, Oxford City Council has told the university 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. It is crucial that we continue to attract the best academics. ”

Work is set to start in 2012.

l College v locals: Page 13 news@oxfordmail.co.uk