POSTGRADUATES fear many will abandon their studies, after a decision to axe university accommodation in Durham.

About 140 Durham University postgraduate students have received a letter from the university telling them they will have to leave their university accommodation in September.

The university says this is because they are attracting so many postgraduates, they need to be able to provide first year postgraduate students with somewhere to live, especially if they have just arrived from overseas.

But students say it will be particularly difficult for them to find housing in a city already notoriously short of rented accommodation.

Postgraduate student David Morgan and chairman of the house committee, said when the decision was rubber-stamped it was the first many students had even heard of the move.

Mr Morgan said: "People are being thrown out in September. I've had a number of people tell me already they might just leave, even after three years of study."

A spokesman for the university said the decision to give priority accommodation to first year postgraduates, brings the arrangement in line with rules that already govern undergraduate accommodation.

He said: "The people affected include quite a lot of students who have been in accommodation for one or two years, or even more if they've applied for an extension for writing up their dissertation for a Ph.D.

"We have a lot of international post-graduates students who are arriving in this country for the first time and would otherwise find it difficult to find somewhere to live."

He said the university was planning to build more accommodation and was currently looking at developing the site of the former Dryburn Hospital in Durham.