Falmouth University is committed to providing the 2,500 beds required to house the extra students heading to the area over the next three years and is looking at sites on or near the Penryn campus to fulfil that need.

The university's chief operating officer, Peter Cox, addressed Falmouth Town Council last week, saying: "We want to try and see 2,500 new beds delivered to accommodate growth. We want as many of those as we can on or near the (Penryn) campus."

A site at Parkengue Road on the Kernick Industrial Estate is being earmarked for a mixed-use industrial and accommodation development and the university is hoping to persuade Cornwall Council to add the Vospers' site at Ponsharden to its DPD to enable another 400 student beds to be built.

A further 450 beds could be delivered at the Treliever Innovation Park in Penryn and 400 are planned for Packsaddle. Added to this are the purpose built student accommodation blocks granted on appeal in Falmouth at Ocean Bowl, the Rosslyn Hotel and Fish Strand Hill - and possibly the former Coachworks' site which is currently in the hands of a planning inspector.

The university also has permission for 1,047 beds on the Penryn campus, which are supposed to be delivered as part of the section 106 planning agreement attached to the planning permission to lift the cap on student numbers.

However, Mr Cox said: "We have tried very hard over the last two years to deliver these. It has proved very difficult to get somebody to build them. We were negotiating with a consortium up until June last year, but we could not reach a deal so we are exploring different options.

"One thousand beds for one scheme and one funder was too much. It seems we have have to break it up to smaller schemes."

Mr Cox said the university is not supporting the Penvose student village scheme, which was granted permission last month, as it is considered "undeliverable" in the required time.

"I do not think it will be built in the next three to five years, if at all," said Mr Cox. "We need to find 2,500 beds sooner than that would deliver."

With regard to future student developments, councillor Steve Eva said: "You have got yourselves in such a pickle now - hardly anybody in Falmouth believes what the university says and you have done that to yourselves. People around this table and Save Our Falmouth need to know there's going to be an end to all this.

"Every time a piece of land comes up for sale, someone buys it for student accommodation. There are kids in this town, 20-30-year-olds, who cannot get a home because of it. Personally I don't think that's fair."

Councillor Alan Jewell said the community had been "let down" by the university over the lack of progress on the 1,047 on-campus beds, and that he would prefer the Ponsharden site to the development for local housing.

He told Mr Cox: "You should have a serious think about what you are doing and maybe say you don't need that land at Ponsharden and maybe then Falmouth could have some local housing."