OXFORD'S biggest planning application for a generation, the £300m revamp of the Westgate Centre, has been given the backing of city councillors.

City council planners last night gave the scheme the all clear, but as in previous attempts to refurbish the 1970s mall, the Government is set to have the final say.

Although the Capital Shopping Centres scheme was given the thumbs-up by councillors, the application will land on communities secretary Ruth Kelly's desk.

It will then be up to her to decide whether a public inquiry is necessary, or whether she just needs to rubber-stamp the plans as they stand.

Either way, Town Hall planning chiefs expect a final decision by Christmas.

During three hours of deliberations, a packed council chamber heard last night how the scheme would rid the city of the current brutal architecture and provide shoppers with a less cluttered retail environment.

Planning officer Murray Hancock described how the development, consisting of a light and airy mall, garden building, market building and John Lewis store, would boost Oxford's ranking in the regional shopping league.

If it failed, millions of pounds would continue to be lost to neighbouring towns and cities, the meeting heard.

However, successive speakers, including Graham Jones of city centre business pressure group Rescue Oxford, said vital questions surrounding air pollution, traffic congestion and bus access, remain unanswered.

There are no plans to remove buses from Queen Street and no plans to increase the number of car parking spaces.

He said: "The (Westgate) partnership has admitted at busy times there is expected to be an insufficient number of car parking spaces.

"At present there are long queues. What's it going to be like with 40 extra retail sites and John Lewis, how is the city going to cope?"

If permission is forthcoming by the end of the year, construction is scheduled to start in October 2007 and finish in 2011, exactly 39 years after the Westgate Centre first opened.

City councillor Sushila Dhall made a passionate plea for the tenants of nearby Abbey Place to be considered.

She claimed the developers had instructed the city council that the flats would have to be demolished in what she described as a take it or leave it offer.

Ms Dhall added that the tenants had been contacted by an agency acting on behalf of a compulsory purchase company who said their homes would have to be flattened.

"I find this unacceptable," she said. "I would be appalled if the city council didn't think these residents were important."

Previous schemes to redevelop the Westgate had been tabled before, but failed. However, this one is different.

For a start it forms part of an adopted local plan and received a boost earlier this month when the Environment Agency withdrew its objections to the plans, thus easing fears about the impact of flooding on the area.