NEW measures to stop students moving into quiet residential areas of the city have been drawn up by Oxford City Council.

The proposals would limit new student accommodation to the city centre and Oxford’s main roads.

The Town Hall’s ambitious bid to direct student accommodation away from residential areas comes in the wake of protests from residents about rowdy students.

Earlier this week, we reported how the council has also drawn up rules to combat the spread of multi-occupied homes.

A proposed threshold would limit the number of new HMOs to a maximum of 20 per cent of houses in any 100 metre stretch of residential street.

The council’s proposals will bring relief to troubled neighbourhoods and “minimise the noise and disturbance created by students passing residential properties at night.”

If approved student accommodation development would be limited to: l Sites on or adjacent to an existing college, university campus or campus with teaching facilities.

l The city centre or a district centre.

l Directly next to a main road that has a good bus service.

The council says exceptions would only be considered if developers demonstrated there was no risk of “unacceptable increase in movement of students past residential properties”.

The package would also impose a requirement that new student accommodation should make a financial contribution to affordable housing elsewhere in the city. This will add significantly to future student building costs.

East Oxford campaigner Sietske Boeles said: “It is great news that purpose built student accommodation will be directed away from quiet residential streets. The proposal that developers should make contributions towards affordable housing will also make it less profitable to build student accommodation.

“Developers went for student accommodation because it was more profitable. Hopefully this will mean more housing in residential areas rather than student accommodation.”

She said the 20 per cent threshold would also lead to more balanced communities.

Oxford has the 14th highest number of houses in multiple occupation in the UK, with high concentrations in Headington and East Oxford.

It is estimated that some 5,000 households in Oxford are HMOs, which represents about eight per cent of all households.

City council’s deputy leader Ed Turner said he expected the proportion of shared houses in some areas to decrease over time.

Jan Bartlett, of Premier Letting in Cowley Road, said: “The city council has just lost a case in the High Court in a challenge that would have made it harder to change from family use to HMOs.

“HMOs seems to be an obsession with them. A lot of it comes down to residents’ associations making a fuss.

“My company lets to many youngsters who work with computer firms or for the university, who have to live close to where they work and cannot afford to buy their own houses.”