Keble's new campus bid set to be rejected today

The £45m scheme to create a campus between the Woodstock and Banbury roads had promised to be one of the biggest college developments in recent history.

But city council officers will back conservationists who say that the scheme would mean the demolition of the listed Acland Hospital building , while having a detrimental impact on the North Oxford conservation area.

Planning officers will recommend that the council’s north area committee, which meets today, should reject the scheme on the site of the former private hospital, which Keble acquired four years ago in a £10.75m deal.

The college wants to build a new quad and three- and four -storey buildings with frontages on both Banbury Road and Woodstock Road to provide 248 student study bedrooms, along with seminar rooms and a research centre.

Officers were unhappy about the loss of the Grade II listed Acland building, dating from 1897, and designed by the celebrated Victorian architect Sir Thomas Jackson.

The building also has close associations with Sir Henry Acland, the university Regius Professor of Medicine, who was largely responsible for the University Museum. He founded and developed the nursing home that eventually became the Acland hospital.

Objections to the demolition were raised by both Oxford Preservation Trust and the Victorian Society.

Kristian Kaminski, conservation adviser to the Victorian Society, said: “The Acland hospital is listed as a building of national importance and any redevelopment plans must attempt to incorporate that. The current application pays only lip-service to this requirement.”

English Heritage said the building had “historical, aesthetic and communal values”.

Keble said the development would create an impressive quad, with sunken gardens, along with a new public route for pedestrians and cyclists along the site’s northern boundary.

Keble bursar Roger Bolden said: “We think it will bring a significant improvement to Banbury Road.”

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