PLANS to turn a historic university campus into a college for overseas students have been branded “vandalism” by city councillors.

Birmingham City University is set to turn the School of Art, based at two buildings on Linden Road and Maple Road, Bournville, into a new international college which will open its doors in the autumn.

The art school, which has been based in Bournville since 1903, is moving to the university’s new £61 million Birmingham Eastside campus which will be the new home for the Birmingham Institute of Art and Design from next year.

The new Bournville campus college, called Birmingham City University International College (BCUIC) will teach foundation programmes for international students wanting to study UK degrees in subjects including art and design and business.

Successful students will then qualify to study at the university itself.

The college will open at the Maple Road Site in the autumn and at the Linden Road site in September 2013.

The move has been met with fury by Bournville Conservative councillors Robert Sealey, Timothy Huxtable and Nigel Dawkins, who denounced the plans on their website.

But Prof Chris O’Neil, executive dean of the Birmingham Institute of Art and Design, insisted the university was committed to a future in Bournville.

Coun Dawkins said: “The university website describes the Bournville campus as ‘a beautiful, extensively refurbished environment with a 100-year pedigree’.

“Yet the university intends to shamefully discard all of this art and craft history and instead use the buildings to run courses preparing foreign students for other courses within their university program.