Designs for the new post-graduate student accommodation for the University of Cambridge at the North West Cambridge Development have been approved by the local planning authorities.

Phase one of the development will include 325 post-graduate student bedspaces of the 2,000 that were agreed as part of the outline planning permission in February 2013.

Roger Taylor, Project Director of the North West Cambridge Development, said "The designs for the post-graduate student accommodation naturally reflect the architectural language of the city and Cambridge colleges, whilst working to achieve high levels of sustainability and creating a great place for future students to live. These are the first buildings in Phase One that have received planning approval and they reflect the characteristics of the masterplan, which is to create a new, cohesive urban extension to Cambridge."

The scheme is the first of the detailed planning approvals that will be part of the North West Cambridge Development, a 150 hectare mixed-use development site. The University received outline planning consent for the masterplan and consent was secured with the section 106 signing in February 2013.

Andrew Drummond, Project Associate from RH Partnership said: "The last 18 months has seen an exciting and often challenging collaboration between the architectural, masterplanning and technical teams… existing collegiate sites in Cambridge was the inspiration for the series of courts and landscaped garden spaces within our proposals, which creates clusters of post-graduate rooms forming varying sizes of houses."

The outline includes 3,000 homes (50% keyworker for University and College staff / 50% market homes), 2,000 student bed spaces, 100,000 sqm research space, a local centre with supermarket, retail, community centre, primary school, energy centre, police touchdown and healthcare as well as site infrastructure and greenspace.