There will soon be even more Cambridge University student housing in the city centre after a controversial housing application was narrowly approved.

King’s College has secured permission to build 60 graduate rooms and 24 flats in Barton Road.

The controversial development will see 27 Barton Road refurbished and extended, while the three “buildings of local interest” dating from the 1930s, 1-12 Croft Gardens, will be demolished.

The 24 flats will not be available on the open market and will instead be available for university students and staff.

Residents and Newnham councillors spoke out against the plans when they were decided at the August 7th Cambridge City Council planning committee.

What about affordable housing?

The application was previously discussed at a planning meeting on June 11 but was deferred because of concerns raised over affordable housing and the definition of student accommodation.

Council policy requires a provision of affordable housing for a development of 10 or more homes.

King’s College’s plans for Barton Road do not trigger the requirement because the graduate rooms are exempt and the 24 flats provide a net increase of nine.

Cllr Kelley Green said the requirement of affordable housing was “probably the most important in the local plan” and said using the net figure and not the total was creating a “loophole”.

The college argued the buildings of local interest needed to be demolished because they had reached the end of their life span, while the councillors and residents opposed noted Historic England's preference had been to retain them.

Narrowly approved

Opposition to the plan came close to succeeding. The application was recommended for approval by the council’s planning officers, but only subject to a condition requiring the college to fence off an area of woodland at the rear of the site to block its use as an amenity space.

The clause – Condition 33 – was removed by the committee, voting four to three, which caused some confusion and the meeting was temporarily stopped for the officers to decide the implications of the decision. The council’s delivery manager for development management, Nigel Blazeby, then advised the committee officers no longer recommended the application for approval without it.

Committee chair Cllr Martin Smart then brought a vote to reinstate the condition, which was tied three votes each way with one abstention. In a tie the vote supported by the chair is passed and so the clause was reinstated.

The full application was then passed by four votes to three.

Asked after the meeting why he changed from supporting the removal of the clause to then abstain – reinstating officer support for the plan and making it much more likely to pass – Cllr Damien Tunnacliffe said: “It all got out of control and we were going round in circles.

“I felt we needed to break out of the impasse we had got ourselves into – it was convoluted and counter productive.”

Both Newnham councillors Rod Cantrill and Markus Gehring spoke in opposition to the plan, both insisting adequate provision of student accommodation is already available in the city.