THE future of a busy Witney car park hangs in the balance after council chiefs renewed planning permission to build homes on the site.

West Oxfordshire District Council has applied to renew two permissions, one to retain Woodford Way car park and one to build 50 homes there.

The council, which owns the site, said it wanted to keep its options open.

But people living nearby said the car park is almost always full.

They have called for the council to rule out building homes to protect their narrow streets from parked cars.

Woodford Way car park has 250 12-hour spaces, compared to 417 three-hour spaces and 145 five-hour spaces in nearby Marriotts Walk Shopping Centre.

It was opened in December 2007 to replace the Welch Way car park – on which Marriotts Walk was built -–and was meant to be temporary, but proved popular.

All car parks across West Oxfordshire are free to use.

Gordon Oliver, 75, from Woodford Way, said: “What I cannot understand is how, after building all these shops and offering free car parking to all these people, the council would want to shut the car park down.”