CONTROVERSIAL proposals that would give city councillors just one chance to consider major planning applications in Oxford have been described as an “affront to democracy”.

Oxford City Council is to vote on changing the planning process so that all large applications are considered by a central committee — without the opportunity to rethink.

If approved, it would mean the option of ‘calling in’ contentious applications — such as happened with Oxford Brookes University’s plans to redevelop its Gipsy Lane campus — would be removed.

Brookes is seeking to build a new £132m library and teaching building at the top of Headington Hill, but the plans for what was described as a ‘new gateway to Oxford’ were opposed by some residents.

The university’s original planning application was approved by the city council’s strategic development control committee last year, but was called in for reconsideration by councillors and then rejected by a full meeting of the council.

The university has since tabled a significantly amended application which it hopes will address the concerns of those who had opposed the first plan.

Under the proposed planning system, the university’s application would have been approved at the first hearing with no subsequent challenge.

Susan Lake, chairman of the Headington Hill Residents’ Association, which led the campaign against the first Brookes application, said: “I am horrified. This is just another affront to democracy.

“It is not perfect the way it is, but, grudgingly, I would say it’s better than what is being considered.”

Sietske Boeles, who has led a campaign against separate plans to build on Warneford Meadow in Headington, added: “The planning committee can get it wrong.

“Oxford University’s book depository application, which was recommended for approval, was approved by the strategic development control committee and then overturned at full council, having been called in.”

Oxford University’s proposed £29m book depository for the Bodleian Library on the Osney Mead industrial estate was approved by the strategic development control committee in the summer of 2007.

The proposed depository scheme was called in by councillors and rejected by the full council later that year.

A planning inspector subsequently backed the decision of the full council.

The depository is now being built on the edge of Swindon.

Jeremy Thomas, the council’s senior legal officer, is expected to argue that similar-sized councils do not have a call-in process.

Councillors will vote on the proposals on Monday.

City Labour group leader Bob Price said: “The fact that other local authorities don’t ‘call in’ is, to a degree, not relevant. The kinds of issues that come to the city council are quite different from those that come to other councils.”

But he added: “There is nothing more or less democratic about a committee of 12 councillors taking decisions rather than the council as a whole.”

Under the proposals, smaller planning applications would continue to be dealt with by the city’s six area committees, with decisions able to be called into the strategic development control committee for reconsideration.

Liberal Democrat city councillor David Rundle said: “This proposal isn’t just wrong in principle, the timing of it to many onlookers would look dodgy.

“A new Brookes application is in the pipeline that should stand or fall on its own merits.”