UNIVERSITY and council chiefs are set to clash on controversial plans to build student flats near a medieval leper hospital in East Oxford.

Oxford University and Oxford City Council will make the case for and against the Bartlemas plan at an appeal hearing on Tuesday.

Oriel College wants to create 31 graduate rooms on the site of a former nursery school in the Bartlemas conservation area, off Cowley Road.

The college has already failed three times to build on the site, between Southfield and Bartlemas roads.

It will now face council solicitors and residents at a Planning Inspectorate hearing at Oxford Town Hall on Tuesday, February 15. The inspector will make the final decision.

Residents argue it will ruin the character of the medieval hamlet, where lepers once sold their wares to travellers coming into Oxford.

Siestke Boeles, from Divinity Road Area Residents’ Association, said: “Local residents would like to see the redevelopment of the Old Nursery site, but for a development which has a community purpose and is in keeping.

“Neither Oxford University nor Oxford Brookes have any need to develop this unique site.

“Both universities have sufficient student accommodation sites, and East Oxford is already saturated with students.”

The planning application was turned down by councillors on the East Area Parliament last March, despite the council’s planning officers recommending it be allowed.

Previous plans were thrown out by the council in December 2008 and backed by a July 2009 appeal. But in its written submission to the new appeal, the college said it had changed the proposed building’s design so it would preserve Bartlemas.

The college said: “The East Area Parliament has come up with nothing new, no different angle. It has, having considered exactly the same issues as its professional advisers, taken the opposite view.”

And it added it was “very unlikely” graduates living in the proposed block would cause noise and disturbance.

But Green city councillor Nuala Young said: “This is a very special little settlement in Oxford, and it is one of the few remaining sites of a medieval leper colony in the UK.

“Because of that, it is really important we defend its wonderful sense of isolation, peace and apartness. It could be a wonderful resource for people and students in the future.”

She said although the council had not rejected the plan over fears about noisy students, she had had many concerns about this from residents. The hearing will take place at 10am at Oxford Town Hall. The public are welcome to attend.