Residents have been surprised to receive a flyer through their doors about planned student accommodation and residential development on the corner of London Road and Latimer Road. There will be some sort of information display on Tuesday 21st October from 4.00-8.00 pm in the main foyer of Oxford Brookes University. This has been rumoured for some time but refuted until now.
What makes sense for Brookes does not in this case make much sense to residents. I can see that Crescent Hall in Cowley is not popular with students, but building another hall of residence in Latimer Rd/London Rd is overstepping the mark. Students need space and their comings and goings are hardly compatible with the schedule of the elderly in McMasters House adjacent to the proposed site, or the frail and ill in St Luke’s just beyond it.
Who are the likely occupants of this proposed new hall? Is this a money-making venture, a hostel for overseas students, and the Summer School teeny boppers or is it accommodation close to Gipsy Lane campus?
Whatever the answer to the above, this would amount to massive change of use of residential land, and more importantly would involve placing even more people on a dangerous junction, already under pressure, used by small children at the prep school, and the elderly living in the nearby sheltered housing and care homes, plus their often
elderly and infirm visitors.
Dorset House has admittedly not created the problems envisaged in terms of noise. However if another student hall is built in this pressurised location, the problems posed by arrivals and departures at the start and end of each semester will inevitably increase, as will opportunistic parking, regardless of official policies on parking and car ownership.
Just a brief comment on this. A lot of residents are making the assumption that the proposed flats are for Brookes students, this is not necessarily the case. I hope as many people as possible go along to the exhibition, there are lots of questions about safety/access at that junction as you rightly say, Hilary, and there are trees on the site which are subject to preservation orders.