Plans to build a "grain silo for students" on the site of a recording studio where Black Sabbath played have been approved despite protests from residents.
It means the legendary Rich Bitch recording studios in Selly Oak, where the likes of Black Sabbath, ELO, Slade and Robert Plant all jammed, will close this summer.
The team running the studios, at 495-505 Bristol Road, intends to downsize and continue at a different location.
Plans for a block of 267 student bedrooms, in studios and shared apartments, were met with opposition from both residents and the University of Birmingham who claimed developer Aston Spring was cramming too many flats onto the site.
This latest version of the project is actually a scaled-down design from the one lodged last autumn for 347 rooms which was thought too large by the planning committee earlier this year.
There is already widespread opposition to the expansion of student halls in the area with residents claiming it is swamped, while family homes are being converted into student homes at an alarming rate.
Dr Andrew Schofield, of the Selly Oak Community Partnership, said: "Selly Oak should not be expected to accommodate every student in this city."
He said that fitting the 267 studio apartments onto the site was going to be a struggle - creating rooms too tiny for study and living.
"This is not going to be a halls of residence, it's more a grain silo for students," he said.
But Aston Spring spokesman Gerard Sweeney argued the development met with all the planning policies including those covering room size.
"I understand residents concerns but believe we have allayed those concerns through the design process," he added.
The planning committee questioned the demand for more student flats.
Coun Fiona Williams (Lab Hodge Hill) said that, although the university population was expanding, "there are 12 million people within a one hour commute of Birmingham, they do not need to live on site".
But Coun Peter Douglas Osborn (Con Weoley) supported the plan, saying that providing purpose-built halls "will mean there is less need for family homes to be converted into houses of multiple occupation".
The committee voted by seven to one in favour of the planning application.
Reacting to the decision, local councillor Brigid Jones (Lab Selly Oak) tweeted: "Well, a poor-quality hall of residence, described as a 'grain silo for students', got approved. Feel sorry for those that will live there."
