The Vice Chancellor of Oxford Brookes University, Prof Graham Upton, has called for cheaper housing to avert a staffing crisis.

Prof Upton said affordable housing must be made available to lecturers and support staff, to halt recruitment and retention problems at the Headington-based university.

A new report, Recruitment and Retention in UK Higher Education, which was commissioned by the Universities and Colleges Employers' Association, vice chancellors and the Higher Education Funding Council for England, shows the situation has worsened over the last four years. Prof Upton said: "It is an Oxford issue, caused in part by housing costs.

"University salaries have slipped, and it is hard for academic staff earning £25,000 to rent, let alone buy, a house in Oxford."

He added: "A lot of people will come for an interview, like what they see, but then look at estate agents' windows in their lunch break and decide they don't want to come here."

The university has a six per cent turnover of academic staff, and a 17 per cent turnover of non-academic staff.

Prof Upton said: "Retention is a problem with non-academic staff.

"Affordable housing would help because if people get housing at a reasonable price, they may be more content with their job."

However, lecturers say the problem can only be tackled by paying higher salaries.

Members of the National Association of Teachers in Further and Higher Education at Oxford University and Oxford Brookes University have called for a 15 per cent pay rise for academic staff, and have backed calls for more Government funding for higher education. NATFHE General Secretary Paul Mackney said: "It is absolutely clear that in both old and new universities there are major recruitment and retention problems for mainstream lecturing staff.

"Low pay is a major problem that has to be tackled."

An Oxford University spokesman said: "The recruitment and retention experience of the University of Oxford is broadly in line with that of the higher education sector as a whole."