Revised plans to more than double the accommodation space at Penryn's Old Telephone Exchange do not go far enough in addressing planning concerns, a group of objectors has said.

The building's owners, the James brothers, have been working with planning agents Laurence Associates to provide a new plan for the site at 97 Helston Road, after proposals for a 24-resident block were turned down by Cornwall Council.

The latest design would have fewer beds in eight units, but with the potential to home 19 people would still be almost two and a half times the capacity of the current four-bedroom building.

Neighbours Ian and Cathy McCormick, who run a Facebook page aimed at focussing objections to the project, have said the new plans address the technical objections raised by planning officers but not the two main problems, with overdevelopment and unneighbourliness.

In it's design statement, Laurence Associates wrote: "The revised scheme has been specifically amended to take account of the comments of the inspector to overcome the harm to the conservation area and address any residual unneighbourly impacts."

Work included reducing the front extension, pulling it away from neighbouring properties, and adding a "small extension" running the length of the building so instead of four access doors there are only two, as well as simplifying the design with fewer roof planes and rooflights.

But Mr and Mrs McCormick said: "It's overdevelopment. The message has been repeated... and they have come back with this trivial change.

"Last time we thought 'that's it, it's a clear cut thing' and surely the developers would see sense and reduce the scale.

"It has come back with about ten per cent smaller footprint and two fewer units. They have done nothing about the main points."

Residents' main concerns are that windows and rooflights will look over or into neighbours properties, while the added number of residents, expected to be students, will create noise and rubbish, as well as exacerbating the area's current car parking and traffic problems.

They are less concerned about the design of the building, which developers have addressed, as about it's capacity, which they don't believe developers have dealt with.

As Ian McCormick put it: "It's not the size of the box, it's the number of occupants.

"With the corridor on the side there's no fewer people coming out of the building, just out of two doors rather than four."

He said despite the James brothers' insistence that as locals they have the town's interest at heart, "they are not trying to make a positive contribution."

He added: "They are not going to live there, they are not going to own it, they are just going to take the money and walk."

Instead The McCormicks would like to see developers sit down with the town council and locals and have a proper discussion about the building, which they concede is in need of refurbishment or replacement.

The new proposal currently has ten objections from the public, plus one from Penryn Town Council citing over-development in terms of the number of occupants and the scale, lack of amenity space, complete absence of parking provision and no bike storage facility.

The application, which has been recommended for approval by Cornwall Council planning officers, will be decided by the council's central sub-area planning committee in the council chamber of Cornwall Council in St Austell on Tuesday, August 30 at 2pm.