A CONTROVERSIAL £15m hotel plan in Summertown which objectors said will ‘make life almost intolerable’ for residents will go ahead.

easyHotel has approval to build a 180-bedroom development, along with six new homes, on Banbury Road, despite more than 400 objections. The project will bring 61 new jobs to Oxford.

David Faber, the headteacher of Summer Fields School, said the lives of people living in nearby streets would be ‘made almost intolerable’ by the new hotel, while another objector said its design was 'abysmal, like the worst buildings of the 1960s'.

But Alex Hollingsworth, a member of the West Area planning committee, said there was ‘no legitimate reason’ to turn planning permission down.

Residents said they worried about parking, but Mr Hollingsworth said if the committee rejected the application on those grounds, the council would lose an appeal.

The county council, as Oxfordshire’s transport authority, said it did not expect a substantial increase in parking in nearby streets.

Michael Gotch, who represents Summertown, disagreed.

He said: “A hotel of this size should be out on the ring road or nearer the A34. [It would mean] an awful lot of vehicles are not going to come into Oxford or into Summertown.”

But the chairman of the committee, Colin Cook, said that concern should not have been taken into account because it did not relate to the application itself.

The county council admitted the development was ‘not ideal’ in the clogged suburb.

But it said it thought public car parks and the hotel’s car park would ‘adequately cope’ with the traffic generated by the hotel.

easyHotel said most of the visitors to the hotel will travel to it by public transport.

Thames Valley Police said it did not object to the hotel entirely, but worried about crime prevention. It said landscaping on Banbury Road ‘should not impinge’ on street lights or CCTV.

It wants all planters and bollards placed outside the new hotel to stop any motorists parking up on the pavement outside.

At the meeting on Tuesday evening, Mr Cook, voted in favour, along with Mr Hollingsworth and their fellow Labour councillor Tiago Corais.

Mr Gotch and his fellow Lib Dem councillor Paul Harris objected. Two Labour councillors – Dan Iley-Williamson and Lubna Arshad – were late and were unable to vote. Labour's Nadine Bely Summers abstained.

The project was initially due to be considered in July. It was delayed after plans increased the hotel's height and moved it further away from Summer Fields School.