RESIDENTS are already living in an extension of a campus even before the University of Sussex increases its intake by a third over the next three years, a planning inquiry has heard.

Caroline Lynch, of the Coombe Road Local Action Team, told a planning inquiry that only one in six of university students were currently housed on campuses and the situation was to “get a lot worse, very quickly”.

Ms Lynch claimed the council would miss out on £12 million annually by 2018 in lost council tax from former family homes now occupied by students.

She described the continual expansion of universities as a “broken business model” subsidised by council taxpayers without their consent.

Ms Lynch said the student growth into family streets was re-shaping the city with more shops turning into off-licences, takeaways or student HMOs.

But supporters of the university’s expansion plans say the proposals will have “no impact” on the private rented sector.

Former University of Sussex chairman Simon Fanshawe said the “ingenuity” of the university’s Masterplan increase student numbers by 35% without impacting on the housing market.

He said the university had been of “immeasurable value” to the city in terms of business growth and entrepreneurism.

He added: “Just look at other coastal resorts over the last 40 and 50 years to see the significance.

“Brighton and Hove has had a good recession so far in no small part down to the universities.”

The university has also received the “strongest possible support” from Brighton and Hove Albion.

The club’s chief executive Paul Barber wrote to the inquiry to say the plan would help to release a ”significant number” of family homes from student use while the university’s growth was “vitally important” for Brighton and Hove and beyond.