Falmouth and Exeter University representatives spent three days last week at Penryn Town Hall for the first of two public consultations on expanding student numbers at the Penryn Campus.

Around 100 people passed through the doors of the hall on Thursday, Friday and Saturday to give their opinions on plans to raise the cap on students from 5,000 to 7,500, and to hear the universities' reasons for its application.

Robert Hillier, head of communications at Falmouth University, said he had been very pleased with "the quality of discussions" and people had been "largely well informed," while it had been easy to help people in need of more information.

He said: "I think in almost every case people have left happier than they have come in. There have been quite a few people who are largely supportive."

He said the two main areas of concern raised by people had been parking and housing, which the university was looking to resolve by working with the community and local authorities.

One of the main objectives of the consultation, according to Mr Hillier, was to show that the universities want to listen to the community they are in, and he said that one of the suggestions made during the consultation was a formal arrangement to allow more dialogue between the town and the universities.

Another thing that was discussed was how to make te university benefit the town more, so that instead of just travelling through Penryn to get to Falmouth they stayed in the town to spend money or gave their time to help local projects.

Mr Hillier said: "That definitely has to form part of the ongoing dialogue with the community... to make the students here feel part of Penryn, as much as they are in Falmouth."

He added that the universities and students had given their full support and co-operation to the Penryn 800 celebrations, and that many university services such as the library, sports centre, and nursery can be used by residents as well as students.

Mark Rohleder, who lives in Penryn and runs one of the town's bars, said there was "always going to be change," but the university needed to find a way to keep the locals happy as well as the students. He added that he thought the fact the university was looking to build more accommodation on campus was a good thing.

But he also thought more could be done to help support local businesses, and said: "It would be a good idea for the university to allow Penryn businesses that have offers for students to advertise on their site for free.

Another local resident, Lee McIntyre, said he had asked about getting the university "properly integrated in the Penryn community," because at the moment Penryn is "just a through road" to Falmouth, and Mr Hillier told him he would would investigate that.

He said that although Mr Hillier answered some of his questions, he became a "PR robot," when questioned about the vice chancellor's salary and said "if you do a vox-pop you wouldn't find many students that care about Anne's pay."

Mr McIntyre also asked about creating a sustainable creative industry in Cornwall, and was told that the university had two new initiatives planned.

Ruth Grimmer of Exeter University said people had been pleased to hear the university had a target for more residences to be built before could raise student numbers to its next target of 7,500.

She said if everything went as planned there would be a higher percentage of students living on campus, but also conceded that there would still be more students living off-campus than there are currently.

She said the amount of purpose-built off-campus provision was up to private developers, and the university had provided such developers with information about its student growth plans.

Ms Grimmer also said the university was in talks with other councils, such as in Helston, Camborne and Redruth, and Truro, who were keen to encourage students to live in their towns, including second and third years. She said: "One of the criticisms we meet is that too much of the benefit is focused in Falmouth and Penryn, and we need to spread the love a bit more."