WORK to build 140 student rooms in blocks above the St Clement’s car park in Oxford will start in February, it has been revealed.

Developer Watkin Jones finally won planning permission for the scheme in September after a series of applications were turned down by Oxford City Council, which owns the car park.

Campaigners who opposed the project initially said they would challenge the decision to give consent by seeking a judicial review of the decision, but the council has yet to receive any notice of a legal challenge.

Restaurateur Clinton Pugh, one of the leading opponents of the development, said: “As far as I’m aware, we’re still waiting to find out whether one of the elderly residents of Anchor Court can get Legal Aid for a judicial review.”

The project was opposed by traders and residents of St Clement’s who feared a loss of car parking spaces for customers and visitors to the area during construction, while neighbours of the site were worried about over-development and loss of privacy.

Designs for the project, which was first proposed in 2009, were turned down several times, most recently by the city council’s west area planning committee in August.

But in September, after 12 Labour councillors backed a call-in of the decision taken the previous month, the application was eventually approved by the planning review committee.

Council spokesman Louisa Dean confirmed that no legal papers had been served, and said construction work on the site was due to start in February.