Plans for a new £2.4m recycling site at an Oxford Park and Ride employing three members of staff have been given the go ahead.

At a City Executive Board meeting held at Oxford’s Town hall tonight city councillors agreed the proposal to site the new transfer station for recycling materials.

The new centre will mean that council-run refuse trucks will no longer have to travel to Culham, which is some 12 miles away, to transfer waste materials.

A new access road will be built off Old Abingdon Road for the facility.

Speaking at the meeting Councillor John Tanner said: “It’s an excellent scheme.

“At the moment with our recycling it is collected and then has to be taken to Culham and before travelling back to Oxford.

“So if we have this site it will save effectively a lorry and a team collecting this. So it is a big saving and in very few years it will pay for itself.”

He warned councillors that there would be some increase in traffic movements in the area as a result of the project, and added that there would be 11 additional vehicle movements each day but argued it was a small number.

Addressing concerns over a loss of parking spaces at Redbridge Park and Ride he said that there would be sufficient space.

He said: “Redbridge is usually about half full. At Christmas and other times it can get fuller but there will be room for all these cars.”

At the same meeting Oxford City Council approved plans to purchase a new refuse lorry which will create two new posts, a driver and a loader.

Oxford City Council will next have to gain planning permission before it can commence construction of the facility.

It is expected to cost £2.4m and generate revenue savings of £320,000 a year once fully operational.