Oxford City Council set to vote on selling off city centre building to university college
St Peter's College wants to expand the New Road site and quadruple its student bedrooms
Oxford City Council plans to sell off a city centre building to a university college with plans to quadruple the student bedrooms inside.
A council report has said the authority is recommended by its officers to sell 11 New Road, close to the Westgate shopping centre and county hall, and that it has an offer on the building subject to planning permission being given.
The same council is the planning authority covering the building and has received a proposal (26/01994/FUL) from St Peter’s College, Oxford, to buy the site, expand it and replace the nail bar it houses with new student accommodation.
The proposal to “dispose” of the property is set to be put to a vote on Wednesday, September 16, at city cabinet.
The building currently houses off-licence Castle News and barber shop Classy Barbers on its ground floor.
The first floor is American Nails, a nail bar, and this would be replaced under the college’s plans – renovated and turned into permanent student flats.
St Peter’s is currently a tenant of the building, leasing the second floor as a six-bed HMO – its proposal says that it will increase the number of bedrooms there too.
The city-owned property currently rakes in an annual income of £110,280 for the authority, and the council documents restrict the terms of the deal made to sell it off – it will withold financial details until this is completed.
The council report said “the disposal of the property” would create capital funding which could be used to “reduce borrowing”.
The college indicated in the plans that it is seeking to buy the building, ‘contingent on viable planning permission’, to take the current offering of six student bedrooms to 24, with eight on each floor plus shared bathrooms and kitchens, and amenity space in the basement.
It also plans to extend the front of the building by 1.06 metres into the St Peter’s College grounds behind New Road, giving it a new 1930s ‘arts and crafts’ style to match the adjacent Stokes’ pastry school building and other areas of the college.
A statement submitted with the application said the proposal is designed to address the ‘significant shortfall’ for both undergraduate and graduate students, who were short of 44 bedrooms this year.
The application is currently under consideration by Oxford City Council with a target decision date of October 12.
The property is not the first to be sold off by the city council in recent years.
In 2025, the Grade II listed North Gate Hall, opposite the Oxford Union, was sold by the authority to its tenants, the Oxford Evangelical Presbyterian Church.