The £300m Westgate redevelopment in Oxford looks set to win county council approval next week.

A report to the council's cabinet meeting on Tuesday recommends backing for the scheme which will increase the city's retail space by a quarter.

Developers, though, will have to pay towards improving public transport and park-and-ride.

The report also points out that some city centre businesses face the possibility of compulsory purchase orders. Homes for disabled and elderly occupants in Abbey Place face demolition.

David Robertson, the council's cabinet member for transport, said: "I hope people will see these conditions as the commonsense way forward. We have a medieval city with traffic problems and a brand new development that has the potential to create even more congestion, if careful forward planning by all parties is not employed."

Seventeen stores, eight offices and 14 flats in Abbey Place were all sent letters this week, urging them to negotiate to avoid any prospect of compulsory purchase orders having to be obtained.

The county's comments will be a key factor when the Westgate application goes before meetings of the city council as planning authority, the South West Area Committee on October 10 and then the Strategic Development Committee on October 25.

The report says the number of city centre parking spaces would remain broadly the same, despite 5,000 extra shoppers likely to be drawn to the new centre on Saturdays alone.

It says that as part of the planning process the developer should make financial contributions to improvements to park-and-ride, cycle parking, variable message signing and real time bus information.

The report concedes that air quality levels would be hit in some city centre locations.

The report adds: "What the Westgate application does not provide is a satisfactory alternative route for buses arriving from the south or east to turn round, were they denied access to Queen Street."

If early planning consent was granted, the new development could be completed by October 2011. Construction would be likely to take around four years.

Oxford City Council said this week that owners and occupiers in the proposed Westgate development were being informed that compulsory purchase orders would only be considered as a last resort.

Jane McFarland, group development manager for the Westgate Partnership, said the bulk of the site was owned by the city council and the partnership.

But the compulsory purchase process could affect part of Oxford and Cherwell College and 17 shops in the centre belonging to national chains, such as Sainsbury and Sports Soccer. She said many had expressed interest in becoming part of the redeveloped centre.

Christian Patterson, a carer at Abbey Place, said: "The idea of talking about compulsory purchases even before it has gone through the planning procedure is outrageous.

"There appear to be no proposals to build any flats for the disabled after they have demolished these ones."