Magdalen College has been granted planning approval to build a 76-bedroom PBSA development in Oxford. The plans will see the Waynflete Building and rear extensions on St Clement’s demolished and replaced with a PBSA scheme.
The scheme aims to deliver a high quality, truly sustainable student accommodation development, designed with student and community wellbeing at its heart. The plans also include new buildings to accommodate shops at ground level fronting St Clement’s and a multipurpose space.
“We are prepared to invest very significant sums in this beautiful riverside in order to create a space of a highest quality, with a green biodiverse riverside garden where there is currently concrete and with ensuite rooms with communal kitchens that are generously sized and large enough for people to eat together in.
“It will meet the college’s needs for the foreseeable future, enabling us to keep our own students inside the boundaries of the college and out of the private rental market.”
Dinah Rose QC, President, Magdalen College
The project offers the opportunity to develop a best in class, low energy building which, as well as being Passivhaus standard, draws on other guidance and accreditation including Well, LETI and BREEAM.
Redevelopment of the site offers an opportunity to create a high-quality landscape, significantly improving site wide ecology, opening up views to the River Cherwell and enhancing the site as a green gateway into Oxford.
“The development would ensure that a higher standard of student accommodation could be provided on site, adjacent to the college and in a sustainable location without losing bedrooms”.
Statment, Planning Officer, Oxford City Council
Completed in 1963, the Waynflete building lies at the east end of Magdalen Bridge by The Plain roundabout. Dinah Rose QC, President of Magdalen College, said that the existing building did not meet the current or future needs of the college, and that the building had poor insulation and inadequate washing facilities.
The Waynflete site was identified as an area for redevelopment in Magdalen College’s masterplan, which was commissioned in 2019 to identify opportunities that would serve the College’s long-term needs, improve its sustainability and enhance interaction with the wider community.
