A SIXTEEN-storey building containing accommodation for 426 students is to be built on a Bournemouth site which has been vacant for 30 years.

Bracken Development won an appeal after Bournemouth council refused permission for the proposed building at 37-39 Oxford Road.

Permission was granted in 1989 for an 11-storey office block, but it was never built and the site is being used as a car park.

Bournemouth council sought to keep the site for office use, or failing that, for a use that would create more jobs than the student housing.

But following a public inquiry, planning inspector Simon Warder allowed the plan, saying it “would amount to sustainable development and would help to support the local community”.

Planning consultant Ken Parke, who represented the developer, said council policies requiring office development in the area were out of date.

“They’ve got a policy that’s been in for decades where they want only employment in the Lansdowne area. It goes back as far as the 1970s when they were putting in the Spur Road and all the rest of it,” he said.

“Many of the sites sat there empty and vacant for decades until the university came along.”

He added: “The stagnation in the area is because they’ve been insisting on office-led development where there is no market for it, where it costs more to build the office than you can make.”

He added: "It will be an asset and it will regenerate the area in question. It’s worked wonders for other sites in Holdenhurst Road.”

Both sides of the debate admitted the proposal was against current planning policies, but the developer said a building that included any offices or teaching space would be unviable. The council said there had not been enough effort to market the site for employment.

Bournemouth University is not involved with the scheme and the operator will seek to arrange lets directly with students.

Bournemouth’s planning board chairman, Cllr David Kelsey, pointed out that the inspector had not awarded costs against the council, because the authority had not acted unreasonably.

“He thought we made the decision for the right reasons but he didn’t agree with our decision,” he said.

He said the council was embarking on a review of its local plan which would consider what sites were viable for employment uses.