PLANS to downgrade Oxford City Council’s area committees will “divorce” the authority from the people it serves, opposition councillors have claimed.

Six area committees serve the city at present, dealing with neighbourhood issues, planning applications and grants to community groups.

But the Labour-controlled council plans to downgrade their role as part of its four-year budget to save £10m. It will be approved in February.

The meetings will only be held quarterly in future and their planning powers will be handed to newly created north and south planning boards.

East Oxford resident Penelope Newsome said her area committee had used local knowledge to make planning decisions and to campaign on problems involving drunken students.

She said: “Planning is terribly important in our area. There is so much student development we feel over-run. The east area parliament knows what it’s like to live here and they should take the decisions.

“It can’t be decided by the city council sitting in St Aldate’s.”

Ms Newsome asked: “What about all this delegation and the big society, where has all that gone?”

Area committees’ revenue grant budget will be axed under the plans and replaced with a personal £1,500 budget for each councillor to hand out as they please. The move would save the council £103,000.

Area committees were created in 2002 after a successful pilot in East Oxford in 2000.

David Williams, leader of the city council Green group, said his party would fight the proposals to “the bitter end”.

He insisted area committees were a vital link between communities and the council, and handing councillors individual budgets was ill-advised.

He said: “There will be a divorce between the council and the people it serves.

“I don’t like the idea if individual budgets for councillors they can give out to organisations they like. That becomes a friends and acquaintances budget in my experience.”

A report on the proposals drawn up by senior Labour councillors states: “We, the administration believe these arrangements will improve democracy, decision-making and involvement in Oxford City Council.

“Specifically, the structures of area involvement can be more flexible, and we will encourage councillors, where appropriate, to pull together community meetings in areas smaller than those of current area committees.”