MORE rooms at a Holiday Inn hotel, a dental clinic having to cut a sign outside down to size, and a basement refurbishment at Oxford University college are some of the building projects being considered in the city this week.

A proposal to demolish a leisure centre and replace it with more rooms for the hotel next door have been approved.

Plans to demolish a leisure centre at the Holiday Inn next door to the Peartree Park and Ride and the north Oxford service station were approved in 2018.

The council agreed to renew them as the time limit to carry out the works had ended.

The three-year time limit to carry out the works ran out in February, and the hotel chain applied earlier this year to make sure that if it continues with the work it will be lawful.

In the place of the leisure centre, described as unsuccessful when the Holiday Inn first advanced plans to demolish it, the hotel will build a four-storey extension to provide more rooms.

Photos submitted alongside the application show that the old leisure centre has already been knocked down.

Planning reference: 21/00242/CEU

A dental clinic will have to shorten an advertising sign outside its building.

Council planners said the 310 Dental, at 310 London Road, would not be able to erect the sign because it was ‘a highly incongruous addition in the street scene that is unduly obtrusive when viewed from the street or from adjacent properties and is harmful to the character and appearance of the area’.

The sign, which reads ‘Weekend Hygienist’ and later ‘Open 7 days a week’ is 3.8m tall and is non-illuminated according to planning documents.

Planners suggest it should be made shorter, at a height of 2.4m instead to make it less overbearing.

A smaller sign underneath it will be removed to accommodate this, and a new hedge will be planted around it to make it look nicer.

Planning reference: 21/00112/ADV

Queens College wants to refurbish the basement of its High Street building.

Within the basement are bike stores, toilets and maintenance rooms, most of which has not been redecorated since the 1970s and is in need of repairs.

Like many of Oxford University’s constituent colleges, Queens is a listed building and special permission is needed to carry out works because of its heritage.

Because the toilets are in the basement, a statement with the planning application says they are not accessible for wheelchair users and would not be accessible once works are complete because there is no elevator to the underground floor.

Planning reference: 21/00495/LBC

Two flats on a Headington road could be combined into a single large house.

Number 1 Quarry Road could be converted into a single home, as it used to be before it was turned into two separate flats.

A planning application bills the plans as converting ‘the dwelling back to a family home and carry out alterations as part of the conversion’.

Planning reference: 21/00631/FUL

A garage on a Cowley street will be transformed into a new kitchen extension for the house it is connected to.

The kitchen extension to the home on Cricket Road was approved by council planners.

In a report, council planners said it could only go ahead if builders stuck to the plans and started to build it within five years.

Planning reference: 20/03230/FUL

For details see oxford.gov.uk/planning