COUNCILLORS have delivered a blow to developers behind the new Westgate over car parking plans.

The Westgate Partnership has had to drop plans to create temporary car parking for 900 vehicles at Oxpens, a scheme viewed seen as essential if the £330m retail centre is to open in 2011 as planned.

Councillors were unhappy about a two-deck car park being created on recreational land next to Oxford Ice Rink.

Developers are now anxiously trying to find alternative car parking sites to serve the city centre once the existing Westgate car park is demolished.

The idea of transforming existing park-and-rides into two-storey car parking facilities are being examined.

The Redbridge park-and-ride is considered the most likely option to be enlarged by two-deck car parking.

A two-level structure providing 519 car park spaces on a grassed area to the east of the ice rink was to have opened just for five months.

It was seen as a key element of a carefully worked out timetable to ensure cars could still access the city centre while the huge new shopping site is being developed.

But local councillor Paul Sargent branded the plan "a disgrace" with the temporary car park blighting a widely used green area in the city centre.

The developers will now have to be content with a two-storey car park for 362 cars which will be erected on the site of the existing ice rink car park and the neighbouring coach car park.

The pressure to find additional car parking space will be intense, putting pressure on an already complicated development timetable.

Work on the new Westgate, due to start in the spring, has already had to be put back until next autumn.

This resulted from the need for further archaeological work on the existing car park site which will mean the construction programme being extended to 50 months.

The timetable was also hit by an inquiry into compulsory purchase orders being delayed. It is due to start next week.

Simon Ward, a spokesman for Westgate Partnership, said: "We now look forward to working with the city and county councils in exploring further temporary parking options for the city.

"Redbridge park-and-ride is one of the options we are looking at with the city and county council.

"If an extension of Redbridge was feasible it would probably be with another deck, but again we would need to explore this further."

This is the second time the developers have had to rethink their plans. The original planning application had proposed keeping the current car park open, while its replacement was being built.

The old car park was to have been demolished only when the new one was largely completed and operational.

The developers withdrew the plan for the 519-space car park after the plan had been rejected by councillors on the central south and west area committee.

This week, the council's strategy and development committee voted in favour of the revised plan.

The committee's vice chairman Colin Cook said: "There is plenty of space at Redbridge. We will now have to wait and see what they come up with."

St Ebbe's residents had opposed the Oxpens proposal. Mary Hodges, of the St Ebbes New Development Residents' Association, said residents had always doubted whether the original parking plans would work and feared that developers would seek to use Oxpens Meadow on the other side of the ice rink.

Susanna Pressel, city councillor for Osney, who voted against the plan said: "We were unhappy about putting a car park on recreational land. I am glad it is not going ahead. But I'm still worried that trees could be threatened on the other Oxpens site.

"I would like them to find another solution."

She believed the developers' money would be better spent on developing the city's park-and-rides, with two-tier car parking at Redbridge perhaps becoming a permanent facility.