Guarded welcome

The university has won plaudits for opening up views of the Radcliffe Observatory and for the striking glass pavilion and underground library at the heart of the new city quarter.

But some of the buildings were dismissed as resembling office blocks, while the university faces criticisms about too much being crammed on to the site, in an echo of the complaints levelled at Oxford Brookes University’s £150m scheme in Headington.

The plans for a five-storey new maths institute and a humanities building, to be the centrepieces of the ten-acre Radcliffe Observatory Quarter, went on show at an exhibition in St Luke’s Chapel last week.

Tony Joyce, chairman of Oxford Civic Society, said: “It is certainly better than what was proposed in the university’s original masterplan. We are pleased with some of the views that are going to be created of the Radcliffe Observatory.

“But with the university having decided to cram so many individual departments into large buildings, it was always going to be difficult for them to escape from something just resembling a large office building. I’m afraid it looks a bit more like the University of London than Oxford.

“Some people feel the blocks look rather boring. I think a great deal will depend on the materials they use.”

Mr Joyce was a prominent campaigner against the Brookes scheme for a new campus in Headington, which was controversially rejected by Oxford City Council.

But he said that a key difference between the two schemes was that with the Radcliffe Observatory schemes the large buildings were in the middle and not the edge of the site.

Debbie Dance, director of Oxford Preservation Trust, said: “Clearly Oxford University would be putting a great deal on the site and we will be looking at it carefully in the hope that it can add something to Oxford and its skyline. It represents a huge opportunity in this part of Oxford and it is important that we get it right.”

The cost of the development — the second phase of the Radcliffe Observatory Quarter — will take up about a third of the £600m earmarked for the development of the whole site.

A planning application will be submitted to Oxford City Council at the end of this month, with the university hoping building work could begin by the end of 2010 and be completed by 2013. The first phase planning application dealt with the demolition and refurbishment of former hospital buildings. The Oxford Victoria group said it remained concerned about listed buildings on the site.

Spokesman Peter Howell said the group was worried about what the university proposed to do with the St Luke’s Church building. He said: “The university continues to be vague about its future use. The pews have been removed and we fear the tiled altar platform may go.”