Transforming the former bar area of the Blackbird Leys Community Centre into a facility for the whole of the estate would help to heal the wounds of the past, residents said at a workshop meeting last night.

In the second public consultation meeting held on the future use of the bar area, residents from across the estate demanded it provide a variety of services for the whole community.

The bar at the community centre closed in March almost 12 months after the stabbings of Moshean Cameron and Cherylene Gabbidon.

Calls for a multi-activity centre in the bar area, providing facilities for a range of local support groups, clubs and organisations will now be put to Oxford City Council ahead of a meeting next month.

Marcel Thourbourne, a DJ from Blackbird Leys said: "We are a community in mourning and we need to pull together.

"If we make this place a community centre for every individual born and bred locally we will clear any hurdles in front of us."

Greater Leys resident Carlton Gabbidon, said: "We need a social area where people can come and be together. It's all about involvement and this centre could well do that."

Residents now hope their consensus for a multi-activity centre embracing the whole community will stop councillors from choosing to reopen a bar.

Blackbird Leys Community Centre manager Paul Isaacs said: "Personally, I don't want to see a bar come back but I understand some people would like to see a bar here and public consultation must take into account all these factors."

Moshean Cameron, from Littlemore, was stabbed to death outside the community centre on April 30 last year and the culprits have still not been brought to justice.

Only two months after the fatal attack, Cherylene Gabbidon, of Peregrine Road, Blackbird Leys, was stabbed at a community centre function. Following the two knife attacks councillors launched a campaign to urge Oxford City Council not to renew the community centre's bar licence and it finally closed on March 31.

Two weeks ago, Oxford police said witnesses to the killing of Moshean Cameron could be given the same protection as those who testified in the Birmingham gangland killing of Charlene Ellis and Letisha Shakespeare.