Proposals to pave over sports pitches and double the size of the University of Bath have gone on display.

Three sports pitches will be turned into car parks and the entrance to the central Parade will be transformed.

The draft, outlining the university's plans over the next 12 years, will be exhibited for public consultation for the rest of this week.

University bosses are keen to seek residents' views on their vision. They claim the university will struggle to cope with its growing student population if it does not increase its capacity.

University architect Professor Alan Day believes the expansion, which would cost hundreds of millions of pounds, is vital.

"We are very short of space at the moment," he said.

"We need an additional 12,000 square metres of teaching and research space just to meet existing demands.

"Beyond that we anticipate there will be further growth in student numbers up to 2020 and if we are going to remain as a top ten university we have to maintain the kind of environment that students are demanding."

The University of Bath wants to double its amount of study bedrooms to 4,700 in an attempt to move students out of the city and back onto campus.

Pressure of students on the buy-to-let market and the saturation of residential areas such as Oldfield Park are long-running issues.

The proposals have met with a mixed response.

Some critics have said the bigger car parks will encourage more drivers and create a headache for surrounding villages, and others believed it would result in an "urbanised ghetto".

Walter McCabe, who lives three miles away in Freshford, said: "The residents of Claverton village will have to show some serious mettle to keep this excess at bay.

"This location was never meant to expand to this degree.

"A totally inappropriate extension, and where are all the much-heralded sportsmen and women going to practice – the new car parks?"

Bath and North East Somerset Councillor Brook Whelan applauded the plans.

"There are areas of Widcombe and Oldfield Park where the number of student properties has become a huge issue for local residents. Action is sorely needed," he said.

There will be three main sites for new accommodation blocks – alongside Polden Court on the west of the campus, a postgraduate residence next to the west car park and a block on the east car park.

The loss of the east car park forced architects to propose building on playing fields behind the sports village.

The development will mean the loss of 600 car park spaces, but new car parks would make up for the loss and add another 600 spaces.

The university also has plans to construct academic buildings, covering 70,000 sq m – an increase of more than 50 per cent.

As the proposals are still in a draft format, changes can be made following public reaction to the exhibition.

"The extensive consultation the university has already undertaken in the past year has resulted in a very well-informed draft masterplan," said project officer Jennifer Joynt.

"I hope that the stakeholders who engaged in our consultations will be able to see where their comments have had an influence, and appreciate that the plan offers a carefully balanced approach to development which doesn't undermine the sensitive area the university is located within."

The exhibition is at the University of Bath library every day until Friday. The library will be open 24 hours a day and the exhibition will be staffed from noon to 2pm every day except Wednesday.

It will move to the Aix en Provence Room at The Guildhall on Friday, October 31 between noon and 6pm, and Saturday, November 1 between 10.30am and 3pm.

Feedback questionnaires will be available and can be accessed online at www.bath.ac.uk/masterplan until Friday, November 7.