Relief as student buildings rejected

4:30pm Monday 25th June 2007

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People living in a quiet Oxford close have spoken of their relief after plans to build student accommodation on nearby land were rejected.

Residents in Mattock Close, Headington, were concerned when plans for two student dwellings were submitted to the city council last December.

Under the proposed plans, 88 and 90 Windmill Road and 1A Mattock Close would have been demolished to make way for two separate blocks housing 49 students.

But residents are now gearing up to fight an appeal from developer Cherwell Housing, which is developing the site on behalf of Oxford Brookes University.

More than 71 residents from both streets signed a petition against the plans.

John Herman, 50, said: "I'm definitely relieved it got turned down. I'm a taxi driver and I sleep strange hours and the last thing I would want is noise coming from student halls.

"My home would have been between the two buildings, so I would have been stuck in the middle."

Mattock Close resident Brenda Mundy, who led the campaign against the development, said: "The plans submitted showed the student block would have been four metres from my bungalow and would have blocked out the light.

"It would have totally penned us in and had an enormous impact on local residents with the two developments on either side of the entrance to the close."

Mrs Mundy, 43, has lived in the close for seven years and acknowledges the site had previously been used for student accommodation, but said the intensity of the rejected plans made this a far different proposal.

She said: "In the past there have been six students living in the family homes already on the site but this would have been 49 students living in purpose-built blocks.

"The developers even stated themselves in the planning application it would be an intensification of the site.

"We are not against students, but this would not have been a suitable area."

Intervention by local councillors Stephen Tall, Tia MacGregor and Mohammed Altaf-Khan saw the application turned down at a meeting of the north east area committee last week.

Janet Austin, 31, who has lived in Mattock Close for 14 years, thinks it would have been like living in a student campus if the plans had gone ahead.

She said: "It just seems like every piece of spare land these days is being snapped up and student accommodation built on it."

Mrs Austin said: "If it does go to appeal I know that everyone will be fighting it again. We have stopped it once, so hopefully we will be able to stop it again. We just have to work as a community."

Cherwell Housing was unavailable for comment.