COWLEY centre would be consigned to a gradual decline if a regeneration scheme that 'should have happened 15 years ago' was not allowed to go ahead.

That was the warning from the head of a company working to revamp the shopping centre at Templars Square at a meeting this Tuesday (June 15).

Part of the shopping centre's regeneration was considered by Oxford City Council planning chiefs at the meeting.

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Jamie Whitfield of the property firm New River, which owns the shopping centre, laid out why its plans to demolish a multi-storey car park west of the shops and replace it with a nine-storey tower block of 97 flats should go ahead.

Mr Whitfield said the shopping centre in general was a 'broken model', with Templars Square having 10 vacancies which were unlikely to be filled, and more on the way in the future.

He added: "When you come to the shopping centre there is no sense of place, no sense of arrival. This development should have happened 15 years ago, it is so overdue.

"We know and I know having done several rounds of community engagement that it is the beating heart of Cowley so it is so important we reverse the situation."

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Plans to regenerate the centre are split across three parts of it: the multi-storey car park discussed at the meeting which is due to become flats and a smaller car park; a new 'parade of shops' and flats above them facing onto Between Towns Road; and knocking down the vacant Nelson pub to make way for new flats.

Mr Whitfield said the developers were investing more than £7.2m in the area because of contributions to the public purse before they even started building work.

As he asked councillors on the planning committee to approve the scheme, he warned refusing it would be 'effectively consigning Cowley to endure 10 years of gradual decline'.

The scheme was approved in 2017, but has been held up over contract discussions with Oxfordshire County Council, which wanted money to reset the road layout outside Templars Square to make it more bike and bus friendly.

This has finally been agreed, but the city council planning committee needed to approve plans to demolish the multi-storey car park again due to a change in its own planning rules.

Planning officer Sarah Chesshyre also said the city council 'discovered' that the county had put in place a new controlled parking zone in Cowley at the start of this year, meaning that residents of the new flats would not be able to park cars alongside streets.

The planning committee approved the plans unanimously on Tuesday night after sizing up their merits.