PLANS to build a waste recovery plant in Oxford's Green Belt could spell the end of one of the city's best-known landmarks.

The proposals for a 127m long metal building would replace the 1940s-built grain silo by the A34, near Kidlington.

Up to 150,000 tonnes of waste a year - including aluminium, steel, paper, cardboard, plastic, glass and wood - would be processed at the 1.62-hectare site next to Water Eaton park-and-ride.

The silo would be demolished to make way for the main building, a reception area, hazardous waste containers and a car park.

There would also be fuel tanks and lighting, as well as fencing and security gates surrounding the site, which would be open 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

Ewelme-based Grundon Waste Management Limited has submitted the plans to Oxfordshire County Council, which deals with schemes of this kind.

The firm said an average of 186 lorries a day would visit the site.

But the proposals, which would create 72 new jobs, have led to concerns among some local people. Cherwell District Council's planning officers believe the plan is premature because the county's minerals and waste development framework has yet to be completed.

They were also concerned about Oxford's Green Belt and claimed the new building, which would be 70 per cent of the height of the existing building, but six times the floor area, could be visually more harmful than the grain silo, which was built by the Government's Ministry of Food in 1940 and used to stockpile food during the Second World War and Cold War. Michael Gibbard, district councillor for Yarnton, Gosford and Water Eaton, said: "We need to protect the Green Belt as much as we are able. The silo's a blot on the landscape, but one that people have got used to.

"You can see the grain silo from so far away but the big roof would certainly be an eyesore in the Green Belt."

Bruce Tremayne, chairman of the Oxfordshire branch of the Campaign to Protect Rural England, was also concerned about extra traffic and harm to the Green Belt.

But he added: "We are obviously delighted that they are going to take down that very ugly building."

Green county councillor Craig Simmons said: "Our view is that it is a brilliant idea and long overdue.

"There will be a different pattern of lorry journeys, but these are lorries that would have been going somewhere else anyway."

Carl Smith, clerk to Gosford and Water Eaton Parish Council, said he was concerned about operational hours, extra lorries, noise and pollution.

Grundon spokesman Ruth Roll said the site would sort household and commercial waste before turning it into bales and sending it to specialised recycling facilities.

She said: "Even when householders sort their waste into boxes or bags it doesn't go straight off to be recycled because it is still quite heavily contaminated."

Ms Roll said Grundon was hoping to secure an agreement with local district councils to sort their recyclable household waste.

The Government is keen on such facilities, which it says are in demand.

And she said although the site was officially in the Green Belt it had already been developed and was identified as a possible location for waste management facilities during a recent public consultation.

Oxfordshire County Council is expected to consider the plans in January.