Southampton University bosses have contemplated housing students on a floating barge in an attempt to ease an accommodation crisis.

The university is still considering the scheme, known as a Coastel, but is now thought unlikely to use it.

The news comes after the Daily Echo revealed that students had been put up in the posh £115-a-night Chilworth Manor Hotel as numbers swelled beyond the scope of university housing.

The barge, which is currently moored at Dockhead in the Eastern Docks, would have space for up to 154 students.

Called the Bibby Goteborg after Swedish city Gothenburg, the barge was built in 1974 and converted to floating accommodation in 1991.

A university spokeswoman described the barge as "a water-based modular accommodation vessel which provides flexible, safe, high-quality accommodation that causes low environmental impact."

The idea has won support from student leaders.

Students Union president Tim Rowlandson said: "The actual accommodation on board is lovely, really nice. It is just like a dockside block of flats.

"I don't have a problem with it as long as they sort out the health and safety implications of it. Students in a working dockyard would be a worry."

An unprecedented surge in student numbers opting for Southampton through the higher education clearing system had left the university struggling to cope.

The late arrivals meant the university was unprepared to meet its promise to all first years to find them a place in halls. As a result, many students have been forced to share rooms, while a group of around 30 spent a week in the three-star Chilworth Manor Hotel.

The barge was thought of as a short-term measure to relieve the strain on the accommodation service.

University staff have held preliminary talks with the city council about getting planning permission for the scheme, but now say its future is in doubt as the housing problems ease.

A spokeswoman said: "The situation is that we don't think we will need it but it's an option we still have open to us. It is one of the options we have been looking at but it is unlikely we will go down that route."

Barge owners Bibby refused to comment on the scheme.

A city council spokesman said: "This would clearly be an unusual planning application but, like any other, it would be treated on its merits."

Seeking a floating solution is not a new idea, though this is the first time it has been applied to students. Prisoners already live on water at HMP Weare in Portland, Dorset, and floating hospitals have been mooted as a solution to the problems of the NHS.