A CONTROVERSIAL residents’ parking scheme will be in place this autumn after being given the go-ahead.

About 20 people protested outside County Hall yesterday as the council’s transport boss approved two new schemes for East Oxford.

Controlled parking zones, known as CPZs, will now go ahead in the Divinity Road area and in the streets north of Magdalen Road. But those against restrictions in streets south of Magdalen Road were given a six-month reprieve.

Paul Pemberton, from Aston Street, opposed the scheme in Magdalen North. He said: “It is disastrous and I am thinking about a legal challenge. People like me who live in shared accommodation are going to have to move house.”

Dominic Woodfield, from Silver Road, said: “It was the right decision to make but they have drawn a line through the community.”

Residents accused the county council of making errors in measuring some streets.

The council admitted mistakes had been made, but said only minor amendments were needed and that they had not affected yesterday’s decision. Principal engineer David Tole said: “We accept that there are areas where measurements are not as we believed they were, but the surveyors are human and humans make errors.”

County cabinet member for transport, Rodney Rose, gave the go-ahead to the Divinity Road CPZ, which will stretch from Warneford Lane to Cowley Road, and the Magdalen Road (North) CPZ, which extends from Cowley Road to Iffley Road.

But proposals for another CPZ to the south of Magdalen Road, extending to Howard Street, were postponed for six months to allow the council to study the effects of the other two.

The CPZ proposal was first advanced six years ago. Since then six public consultations have taken place at a cost of more than £300,000.

The most recent consultation, earlier this year, saw 73 per cent of residents in the Magdalen North area supporting the CPZ, but 78 per cent in the Magdalen South area objecting.

Part of the money for the scheme, which is expected to cost up to £291,000, will come from Oxford University as part of an agreement which allowed it to extend its Old Road campus.

Mr Rose said: “All the consultations told me that residents in Magdalen Road North wanted it to go ahead, and they were obviously going to get displacement from the Divinity Road area.

“But the Magdalen Road South residents are not accepting our view that they will have the same problem. I expect that, before six months, they will be clamouring for us to revisit this.”

The permits will cost £50 each a year and each property will be entitled to two. They will also get 50 one-day visitor permits, 25 of them free.