Sites across Oxford are being needlessly earmarked for student homes in a city with a chronic shortage of affordable housing, Oxford City Council has been told.

Oxford residents groups warn that an extensive student accommodation building programme will leave the city with a surplus of student halls at a time when there is a need for family houses.

With a number of new developments submitted to the Town Hall in recent weeks, residents say it is a mistake to propose another 1,050 student flats at a time when Oxford Brookes University is significantly reducing its student intake and Oxford University is predicting only “a fairly small increase”.

Residents groups in Headington and East Oxford claim the city has seen unprecedented levels of student developments in recent years. But with Brookes planning to cut by 1,000 the number of students studying at its Oxford campuses, residents want a major rethink on council strategy.

Twenty-four sites are earmarked for student accommodation in the council’s major sites and housing planning document, which was recently consulted on. These include controversial proposals to build student accommodation on city centre car parks at St Clements, Union Street, Summertown and Headington.

Planning applications recently submitted include plans for 150 student units at Cowley Conservative Club and for two student blocks housing 180 students in Chapel Street, off the Cowley Road.

Elizabeth Mills, chairman of the East Oxford Resident Associations Forum, said in response to the sites and housing planning document: “There is great concern that we could end up with surplus student halls in the near future.

“We would like to see the allocation of most student sites to be withdrawn in favour of more affordable housing development.

“We would like a stop on any student housing development in the St Clements, St Mary’s and Iffley wards as the saturation point has been reached in this part of East Oxford. Further student housing would lead to unbalanced communities.”

This has been backed by the Campaign to Protect Rural England.

In its response to the sites and housing planning document, the CPRE warned: “There are already too many sites in the city which are used for student accommodation.

“The sites should be used instead for residential developments, which would take away the necessity to develop on green space.”

The city council has previously set both universities a target that no more than 3,000 of their students should live in private housing — in a bid to free up more housing for non-students and to stop neighbourhoods being overwhelmed by students.

But Ms Mills said Oxford University had already reached that target and Brookes was close to reaching it, with 370 student units created at The Slade and accommodation for 316 student being built at the former Dorset House on London Road.

Oxford Brookes confirmed that it would be reducing the number of campus students by 10 to 15 per cent over three years, amounting to about 1,000 students.

At the same time it will increase the number of places on foundation courses at ‘partner colleges’ in places such as Abingdon, Witney, Aylesbury, Surrey, Solihull and Swindon.

  • A plan for 29 language student flats near Gloucester Green has been submitted to the city council by Eckersley Oxford language school.

It wants to build a part four- and part seven-storey building next to the college in Friars Entry.

The college’s planning application says that it would block what it says is the “unattractive” view of Debenhams from Gloucester Green.