IT has faced Government cutbacks and thrown its considerable weight behind the move to hike student tuition fees.

But the University of Southampton finds itself at the centre of a row after buying two former city pubs.

Uni bosses are spending hundreds of thousands of pounds flattening the waterholes, now standing empty.

One will be mostly used for car parking, but a majority of the other site will be landscaped to make the university look nicer.

Now hundreds of residents have joined a campaign to save The Crown and Sceptre and The Gate in Burgess Road, Hampton Park, near Swaythling. They have branded the move a waste of money and want the scheme scrapped.

After the two pubs closed down, the university bought them for an undisclosed amount last year.

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Campaigner Tim Webb, 41, of Honeysuckle Road, said: “The Gate has been a drinking establishment dating back to the mid-1700s, yet in a few short weeks a car park and a few shrubs will stand on The Crown’s site, and The Gate will be nothing but a memory.

“I don’t think it is a good use of money to demolish the buildings.

It’s surprising given the threat of redundancies and financial difficulties universities are facing.”

Mark Wallace, of the Taxpayers Alliance, said: “It’s surprising an organisation that claims to be strapped for cash is buying up buildings just to demolish them.”

Earlier this week the Daily Echo reported how university vice-chancellor Professor Don Nutbeam backed a call to increase student tuition fees – currently £3,145 a year in Southampton.

No date has been set for the work to be carried out as planning permission is still being sought for the Crown and Sceptre site which, subject to approval, will be mostly landscaped with car parking set behind. Permission to demolish The Gate and largely transform it into a car park has already been gained.

A university spokesman said: “The project for clearing and landscaping the eastern approach to the Highfield Campus will be a modest investment, which will return significant benefits not only in terms of the visual aspect, but also in replacing car parking spaces lost elsewhere on campus as a result of improvement works to our uni-link bus interchange.

“Following demolition, the Crown and Sceptre has the potential to provide a more visually attractive eastern approach to the university’s Highfield campus.”