NEIGHBOURS are urging councillors to reject a planning application they claim would “desecrate” a conservation area.

People living in Littlemore claimed building six homes on a neglected garden in the centre of the village would destroy wildlife habitats, invade their privacy and dangerously increase traffic volumes.

They want Oxford City Council’s strategic development control committee tomorrow to refuse permission for the proposed building in Oxford Road.

The developer said he thought the proposal would be better for neighbours than another scheme which has already been given permission for the site.

And planning officers have recommended the new application is approved because there is already a precedent that the site should be developed.

Sue Aldridge, of Dudgeon Drive, which backs on to the site, said: “We are not Nimbys.

“Littlemore is already overdeveloped. This will mean chaos — we have massive parking problems in the close anyway.”

London-based Legal Estates already has permission — won on appeal in November 2007 — to build six flats on the site. In December last year, the company submitted a new planning application for three two-bed flats and three houses to better comply with the council’s local plan, which calls for more family housing. This proposal will be considered by the committee tonight.

The council has received 29 representations from people who live in the vicinity of the proposed three-storey development and are opposed to the scheme.

In a letter, Mrs Aldridge said the building would amount to “desecration of a conservation area”, and referred to the original plan for six flats as “an incongruous monstrosity being dumped in a back garden”.

It urged the committee to “stand up and be counted for the sake of common sense and the due process of democracy”.

Legal Estates director Luke Winham said: “Given that the site already has planning permission I am bewildered by the challenge.

“We have worked with council planners to ensure the best possible design for a building that is in keeping with the area.”

ghamilton@oxfordmail.co.uk