MARTIN Young has won planning permission to finally change a rundown house that has stood empty for more than five years.

But he’s not going to use it.

Councillors at the East Area planning committee approved an application from Mr Young for the partial demolition of the existing house and 29 Old High Street in Headington, Oxford, and the construction of a two-storey side and one-storey rear extension to make it a three-bedroom property.

They also agreed to the demolition of existing garages and outbuildings.

But Mr Young had put in a second application for the rear extension to be two storeys high, meaning five bedrooms in total.

He says he now wants to wait for the outcome of that decision before he starts any work.

The house has been at the centre of a battle between Mr Young and Oxford City Council for years. He originally wanted to knock the house down and replace it with five three-storey houses, but this was refused by both the council and a planning inspector.

The council also served a notice on Mr Young ordering him to improve the rundown property.

Speaking after councillors unanimously approved the three-bedroom scheme on Tuesday and giving him three years to do the work, Mr Young, from Headington Hill, told the Oxford Mail: “I will wait and see what happens to the planning application.

“This one was what the planners wanted.

“They persuaded me to put in a watered-down version.”

He added: “Any developer would say ‘we have not got enough bedrooms here’.

“The (new, larger) application is for the same footprint. I want it all to be two storeys where as what they did with this watered-down version is to knock two bedrooms off the second floor.”

Stella Welford, who lives next to 29 Old High Street, said she objected to the original plan for five homes, but had welcomed the amendments passed at the meeting.

She said: “The plans that were approved were an amended version of what he has submitted again. I objected to that original application.

“He is going back not quite to square one, but he has gone back a step.”

The second, larger, application is scheduled to be decided on May 23.