FRUSTRATED residents are gearing up for yet another battle over student accommodation, after a developer challenged a council decision to reject a 363-bed proposal.

It was April of this year when Durham County Council’s county planning committee threw out Peveril Securities’ £31 million project to convert and extend the former County Hospital, off North Road, Durham.

There had been rumours Peveril would return with scaled-back designs, but instead the firm has appealed the outcome.

A final decision will now be taken by an independent planning inspector following a “local hearing”. This is less formal than a public inquiry, but members of the public can attend and make comments and there will be a site visit. No date for the hearing has yet been announced.

A larger scheme was also rejected by councillors in July 2014.

Jackie Levitas, the last non-student resident of neighbouring Waddington Street, said: “They’ve wasted three years tinkering with plans for massive high-rise student blocks which no-one wants on the iconic site and which will disfigure the neighbourhood.

“They’ve not listened to the advice from council members, English Heritage, nor the public or (Durham) University.

“Durham City is now awash with surplus student accommodation which defies common sense.”

Ms Levitas added that Peveril should consider planning inspector Peter Diggers’ decision, taken in May, to dismiss an appeal against the council’s decision to refuse planning permission to convert the nearby Kingslodge Hotel into 57 student beds.

Peveril Securities did not respond to The Northern Echo’s request for comment.

Concern is growing over the spread of large-scale purpose-built student accommodation (PBSA) blocks in Durham.

More than 4,000 new beds have either recently been built or approved or are in the pipeline and the university, which expects to expand by just a few hundred students by 2020, is increasingly objecting to new proposals.

The council is currently consulting on a new interim student accommodation policy that would force developers seeking new planning permission to prove their accommodation was needed and would have no negative impact on the local community.

Consultation sessions will be held at Durham Town Hall on Monday (October 12) and North Road Methodist Church on Thursday (October 15) from 2pm to 6.45pm.

Further details can be found online at durham.gov.uk. The deadline for comments is Friday, October 30.