COMMUNITY leaders last night said they were determined to find ways of making an Oxford estate safer after a spate of robberies on foreign students.

Last month, the Oxford Language Centre, in Gloucester Green, confirmed young female students were no longer being sent to homes in Blackbird Leys following the series of attacks.

Over the summer, 10 young tourists and foreign students were targeted by robbers in the city — including five people in Blackbird Leys.

In one incident, an 18-year-old foreign student was forced to the ground in Blackbird Leys Road.

He had cash and his mobile phone stolen.

Now Blackbird Leys councillors want to meet up with language schools to come up with an action plan of ways to make students feel safer.

So far, ideas include drawing up a map highlighting safe routes home, escorting students from bus stops late at night, and advising them not to carry branded language school rucksacks.

Rae Humberstone, city councillor for Blackbird Leys, said: “I’m going to write to the schools and identify the ones that do put students on Blackbird Leys and invite them to meet with councillors and try to find ways to make it safer for them.

“It’s a case of getting everyone’s heads together to make the situation better.

“I’m a bit concerned some of the students are left to their own devices a bit.

“Perhaps they could be met from the buses late at night and escorted back to their accommodation.

“We all want to work together to paint a better picture of Blackbird Leys and we need to get all sides together and form some kind of protocol, maybe with the police too, to see what we need to make it safer for students so these isolated incidents don’t happen.

“We have to look at it from the language schools’ point of view.

“They have their students’ welfare at stake, but it’s all too easy to say Blackbird Leys isn’t safe. We all know that’s wrong. There are parts of the city centre that aren’t safe too.”

Fellow city councillor Val Smith is also backing the campaign.

She said: “There are obvious things we can do like make sure students are not wearing student rucksacks and what we need is a map showing ways home that are safe.

“Students who stay with families on Blackbird Leys have a very good experience and we want that to continue.”

An Oxford Language Centre spokesman said the plans did not sound unreasonable.

He said: “I’m sure we would welcome any improvements in the safety and reputation of the area.

“It was the students who said they didn’t want to be placed in Blackbird Leys, it wasn’t necessarily our decision. But if the students don’t want to go to the esate, there is nothing we can do.”