ANOTHER key expansion at a booming tourist hotspot has been given unanimous backing by councillors.

Bicester Heritage has been granted permission to build eight new buildings, which bosses hope will attract 10 new businesses to the campus dedicated to historic motoring.

The tourist attraction is built at the former site of RAF Bicester and supporters included Cherwell district councillor Debbie Pickford, who said its growth in the past five years has been ‘truly amazing’.

She said: “I cannot really think of anything that should be more welcome to the Bicester and Cherwell area.”

Dan Geoghegan, Bicester Heritage’s managing director, said: “It has been the custodian of the former RAF Bicester for five years and in that time we have brought over 40 new businesses to Bicester, of which 31 are brand new to Oxfordshire.

“This has added over £30m to the regional economy, hundreds of jobs directly and indirectly, in addition to the 100 apprentices being trained in the only scheme of its kind in the world.”

He added: “We have also opened the gates to over 30,000 members of the public in the past year alone, all to a site that was inaccessible for almost a century.

“It is now the global focal point of the historic car movement, an industry that contributes £5.5bn to the UK economy and employs 5,000 people.”

Maria Philpott, Cherwell District Council planning officer, said her team had asked architects keen on a contemporary design to include more brickwork in some of the buildings, which had been done.

In addition to the new buildings, 84 new car parking spaces will be built to accommodate extra vehicles.

Bicester Heritage is currently 95 per cent occupied and has a waiting list for new highly skilled businesses keen to relocate to Bicester from around the country.

Mr Geoghegan said the work will ‘redevelop [a] former scrapyard and degraded edge, bringing in an additional 10 businesses’.

One pond will be retained in the grounds and another will be created.

Oxfordshire County Council’s highways department had said it had worries about the development but it withdrew them before Cherwell District Council’s planning meeting on Thursday.

Nearby Launton Parish Council said it had its own worries about transport – but Bicester Heritage said it had talked to all nearby parish councils.

Les Sibley, a district and county councillor for Bicester, labelled the project ‘fantastic’ for the town.

He said: “It gives it the A-rating. It’s on the side of the town that we need development.”

The good news for Bicester Heritage comes after it won permission for a 344-room hotel and conference centre.