'Objectionable plan'

People living near the university say the size of the scheme will blight an already cramped area. And rather than provide a new gateway to the city, they fear the centrepiece six-storey student centre building would be an ugly addition to the Oxford skyline, adding to light and noise pollution in the area.

Brookes University submitted a planning application earlier this month, with public consultation on the scheme ending on May 1.

But Headington Hill Residents’ Association says the submitted plans represent “a major departure” from the 2007 masterplan, which they claim showed nothing on such a “monolithic scale”.

The residents’ group has also made a personal appeal to the new Brookes chancellor, Shami Chakrabarti, the director of the human rights group Liberty, in the hope she will intervene.

Fiona Maddocks, spokesman for the residents’ association, said: “The proposed six-storey development, nearly three metres higher than Carfax Tower and the length of the Kassam Stadium’s football pitch, is intended as an ‘iconic building’ at Oxford’s eastern gateway.

“The impact on London Road environment and beyond is incalculable. As a ‘gateway’ it is on the wrong side of the campus. As an ‘icon’ it is of neutral architectural merit — neither daring nor visionary, merely big and boxy.

“And it would be visible from Hinksey, Boars Hill and Chilswell Valley, while towering over the immediate vicinity. English Heritage has queried the disproportionate height.

“The building would be in 24-hour use with late-night licensing, ambient light pollution and an increase in people, traffic, noise, litter. These are already serious blights in a cramped neighbourhood, which feels under siege as Brookes closes in on available building plots.

“As immediate neighbours, in a conservation area of 27 households, we are most radically affected. But we regard it as a bigger problem for the quality of life in Oxford.”

She said the group wase taking hope from recent comments from the Brookes chancellor, who had spoken of, “human rights beginning in your neighbourhood, with individuals, in small places, close to home”.

But Brookes deputy vice-chancellor Rex Knight said the university had not added to its masterplan.

He said the 2007 plan had merely set out the plots where the buildings would go, while the newer plans had provided designs.

“It is wrong to say there has been any departure from an earlier masterplan. We are putting the flesh on the bones,” he said. “The South East Regional Design Panel, who were commissed to provide an independent view, found our proposed buildings were of high quality and the scale was appropriate.”

Mr Knight said a giant balloon had been used to show that the new student building on the western side of the Gipsy Lane campus, which would include an atrium and a library, would not impact on the skyline.

He said the university had consulted widely but had not received complaints from any other local residents’ group about the proposals to replace buildings on its main campus.

To counter fears about light pollution, the university said the intention was to close the upper floors of the landmark student centre building at night.

Brookes hopes the centre should be open in 2012, in what would be the first phase of a development stretching over a decade.

The Helena Kennedy Building on Brookes’s Headington Hill Hall campus is expected to be demolished in a second phase, to make way for a concert hall, which would also be used for ceremonial events.