A HOUSING provider which wants to use most of a building to create flats in Cowley is set to see its plan rejected.

GreenSquare Group, with the help of Oxford-based Cantay Estates, wants to create 27 one-bedroom flats in its building in Barns Road.

They want to keep two offices on the ground floor and put an extension on the building’s roof to create a fourth storey for what would be a car-free development.

But the city council’s officers have urged the major development is rejected.

The plan is dismissed as ‘an unsustainable form of development that would result in the loss of a key protected employment site’.

It is also said to ‘fail to provide adequate functional and good quality indoor and outdoor amenity space’.

There were 10 objections to the development. Some said they were opposed because they felt there was still a need in Oxford to use the development as offices.

A plan for 62 student study bedrooms in the same building was rejected by the council in August.

City council officers also urge the most recent project is turned down because of the possibility trees could be lost on the site.

They also say the plan should be dismissed because the companies are said to have failed to demonstrate why half of all the housing could not be designated as affordable.

The building is a short distance away from the junction of Barns Road and Between Towns Road.

It is also a few minutes' walk away from the Templars Shopping Park and Templars Square.

If the most recent development is allowed, there would be 65 cycle spaces built. Of those, 41 would be for residents and another 12 would be for people working in the anticipated two offices.

A further 12 would be built for visitors at the front of the building.

Initial permission to develop the current building was granted in 1980 and then further permission for the three storey building was given in 1983.

The council’s East Area planning committee will decide on the plan at a meeting tonight.