Student flats to be built on former rail site (From thisisoxfordshire)

Student flats to be built on former rail site

7:20pm Tuesday 21st February 2012 in News

Student accommodation at Castle Mill, Roger Dudman Way

Plans to build hundreds of postgraduate student flats and bedsits have been approved.

The University of Oxford has been given planning permission to build 312 flats and bedsits over four and five-storeys at unused former railway land near the station.

It will be an extension to student accommodation at Castle Mill, in Roger Dudman Way, Oxford, and includes 208 study rooms, 90 one-bedroom flats, 14 two-bedroom flats, 360 cycle bays and three car parking spaces. It is phase two of a scheme that will provide a total of 436 graduate student units.

As part of the development, a new footbridge will be built to Fiddler’s Island and paths and lighting in Roger Dudman Way will be improved.

The university has also agreed to re-fence Cripley Road Allotments.

A report to Oxford City’s west area planning committee said the site had poor access from Botley Road, was ill-suited to commercial development, family housing or other uses that would create significant levels of traffic.

But it said the land was well-suited to the university’s graduate students because of its good footpath and cycle links to the city centre, Walton Street and North Oxford.

Residents had raised concerns about flooding to allotments, that the development was “over ambitious in scale” and about noise and working hours during construction.

The planning application was approved last Wednesday subject to legal agreement to cover all access arrangements.