New student accommodation at Packsaddle could free up 30 family homes in Falmouth and Penryn, according to one of the architects behind the plan.

Adam Parsons, of APG Architecture, was at a public consultation in Penryn to discuss the proposal for a 125-bed development, which would be split into three blocks on land opposite the Penryn Campus.

Speaking an hour after the consultation, he said the majority of objections he had heard had been more general complaints about students in the town and the universities' plans to raise student numbers further, rather than about the specific plans for Packsaddle.

But he also said that designs such as those proposed by APG could help alleviate some of the town centre problems, such as student landlords buying up family homes to sell on, and offered the most efficient use of the land available. He added that the design could be aimed more at second and third year students than at new arrivals to the university.

He said: "There's a shortage of first year accommodation, but they are building a lot of first year accommodation on campus.

"I would anticipate this not being for first years, with the pending article four direction that's coming out, and with strategies for getting people out of houses of multiple occupancies.

"We are looking to create group flats within a managed block so it's connected to getting them out of family homes. We see these three blocks as closed blocks of four, five or six people flats, kind of like the TV show Friends, everybody lives together, groups of friends together."

He said with the blocks able to accommodate 125 people, if you estimated an average family home to accommodate four people then "that's 30 houses that get freed up by using these managed blocks."

Asked about a lack of parking at the site and how that would impact nearby roads, he said the university had a sustainable travel plan and students would be living directly opposite the campus, while the terms of any lease would make it clear that anyone bringing a car could see their lease terminated. He said such a system was "tried and tested" at other universities such as Exeter and Bristol, however admitted it would in large part be a reactive system, with residents expected to report students with cars to the buildings' management.

Alan Jewell, a town councillor and Cornwall Councillor for Falmouth, visited the consultation, and said: "It's a sustainable location, you can't argue with that. They won't need any cars because they can just walk over the road to the university."

Falmouth resident Andy Elder, who visited the consultation, was against building more accommodation for students. He said: "Whether it's Packsaddle, the docks bowling alley or the Rosslyn Hotel, no-one is looking after local interests. There's no sheltered housing, people can't buy a house. There's nothing for the locals, aprt from the people who own the blocks, and the university."

When it was suggested that purpose built blocks could alleviate problems elsewhere, he said: "They tried a similar thing on the M25, put more lanes in to alleviate traffic problems, but they just put more cars on there."

Regarding the plans to prevent students bringing cars, he said: "They expect us to police their problem."

Another local, Billy Evernden, said it was "exacerbating" the lack of housing for local youngsters.

The principal of permission to build is already confirmed for the site, with plans for 11 homes, but Mr Parson said if the units went ahead the net gain to the town would be around 20 homes put back into local hands as students wer drawn out of private housing.

The plans are designed to be masked behind exiting trees at the site, with amenity space placed between the buildings to minimise noise and a management company on site which can field concerns over parking and antisocial behaviour.