PLANS to redevelop Oxford Brookes University’s main Headington campus have been redrawn in a bid to address concerns from its neighbours.

The university says it is ready to add £5m to the cost of the scheme in order to reduce the height of the library building, the centrepiece of the plans to create a new ‘gateway’ to Oxford.

The new proposals for the Gipsy Lane campus would see the new library cut from six to five storeys, taking more than three metres off its height.

But it will mean Brookes having to go underground by building a costly basement library to compensate for the loss of the top floor.

Residents of Headington Hill, who have orchestrated a campaign against the £150m scheme, last week submitted a ‘Stop Brookes’ petition signed by more than 1,000 people.

Residents have objected to Brookes’s plans to replace buildings on its main campus on the grounds of noise, light pollution and even the impact on the local sewerage system.

But the bulk of the objections submitted to Oxford City Council focused on the size and position of the student centre, originally 25.8m high, which would house a library and teaching facilities.

Brookes’s deputy vice-chancellor, Rex Knight, said the university had decided to look again at its plans and had come up with a compromise solution.

He said: “We had already responded to all the other issues. But the height is key, and the one issue that we have not been able to respond to up until now.”

He believed the re-drawn scheme met residents’ concerns about the scale of the project, while allowing Brookes to realise its ambition to create a major new Oxford library and deliver its vision to transform the student facilities at Headington.

A mezzanine effect would mean the building would appear two storeys lower from residents’ homes.

Mr Knight added: “We have focused the biggest reduction in height to the area closest to the residential properties. The library will now be lower than the two tallest buildings on the site — the Abercrombie and Sinclair buildings.

“Achieving this has meant an enormous amount of effort in order to meet the residents halfway. It is the best we can do. I think it is a reasonable compromise between our vision, the sustainability of the project, what we can afford and the views that have been expressed by residents.”

By going underground Brookes will be following the example of Oxford University, which is planning to build a giant underground library on its new city centre campus on the former Radcliffe Infirmary site.

The amended Brookes plan was submitted yesterday to Oxford City Council, with the university hopeful it will not affect the timing of the first phase of the redevelopment, involving the new student centre building, pictured right, and an extension to the Abercrombie building, together costing £132m.

It would also provide a new frontage for the university and a major public square facing out to Headington Road.

Work is due to begin in 2010, with Brookes wanting to open the new buildings in late 2012 or early 2013. More than half of the existing buildings on the site would be demolished. The wider Brookes development is expected to stretch over a decade, with development earmarked at its Headington Hill, Wheatley and North Hinksey sites, bringing the total cost to £150m.

But Susan Lake, chairman of the Headington Hill Residents’ Association, representing about 20 households, dismissed the new plan as “tinkering”. She said: “The university has made a great effort to revise the plans. But it seems to me tinkering on the edges of its architectural plans. It does not address the main problems of too much massing, the location and the height. The reaction from my neighbours is that it still feels the same.”

It is envisaged that the Brookes basement library would house less frequently used books. The university says the top floors of the new library will close early, except at busy exam times, to meet concerns about lighting, while translucent glass would be used in the side of the building facing homes.