COUNCILLORS will have a second go at deciding whether a £15m student digs scheme should go ahead next week (Tuesday, April 14).

Durham County Council’s central and east planning committee first debated Gilltown’s plans to create 214 student beds at Kepier Court, Durham City, last month (March), but voted to defer a decision.

The delay was to allow councillors to visit the site, but the committee also struggled to know what planning policy to turn to, the authority’s flagship County Durham Plan (CDP) having recently been declared unsound, flawed and unrealistic by an independent planning inspector.

That problem remains, with no movement on the CDP expected before May.

However, the issue has been put back on the committee’s agenda – for a meeting on Tuesday (April 14).

As they did before last month’s meeting, the council’s planning officers are recommending consent be granted.

They say the proposed development is sustainably located, on previously developed land, and the site was last used for student accommodation.

Dorset-based developer Gilltown wants to demolish all seven buildings on the 1.7-acre site except Kepier House, a former prison, which would house communal facilities and offices.

Four new buildings are proposed, comprising 98 bedrooms across 19 cluster flats of four to six rooms each and 116 self-contained studio flats.

Some residents claim the scheme would be too large for the site, which has been vacant since it was last used as postgraduate accommodation in 2005, and the new student occupants would be noisy, disruptive and litter.

Bill Williamson, of nearby Mayorswell Close, claimed at March’s meeting the area was suffering from “social cleansing”, with some streets 90 per cent student-occupied.

Durham University has objected to the proposal, saying the extra accommodation is not needed.

Planning permission for more than 2,000 student beds had already been approved before another council committee backed Student Castle’s £50m scheme for 445 beds on lower Claypath earlier this week.

The university says it expects to expand by only 359 students by 2019-20.

Gilltown says the scheme would have a positive impact on the character and appearance of the area and it does not need to prove there is a “need” for the development.

A 2006 scheme to build 43 apartments and nine townhouses on the site failed to win planning permission.

The committee will meet at County Hall, Durham, on Tuesday at 1pm.