HOPES are high that an integrated “transport hub” for Oxford could be created as part of the redevelopment of the city’s railway station.

This would mean the Gloucester Green bus and coach station could, in the long term, be consigned to the history books.

Oxford City Council, Oxfordshire County Council and Network Rail are working together to draw up a masterplan to transform the station and the surrounding area.

The plan, which will be unveiled later this year, lists a number of uses for the site.

These could include a bus station, with express coaches using the Redbridge park-and-ride site in Abingdon Road.

City council leader Bob Price said: “The idea is that there would be an integration of bus and train services – the opportunity now exists more than it did before.

“In the long run, we would like to remove coaches from Gloucester Green completely.

“All options are very much still on the table.”

Train operator First Great Western, which manages the station at the moment, has welcomed the idea of improving connections between rail and bus services.

Spokesman Dan Panes said: “We would be very supportive of anything which came out of the masterplan which made sure there were integrated transport links.”

But Network Rail has said there are no current plans for a bus station as part of the railway station scheme.

Rodney Rose, the county council’s deputy leader and cabinet member for transport, said: “There is a whole masterplan for the new station, so everything is up for being talked about and nothing is being left out.

“To get people to the railway station on buses is paramount, but for me the most important thing is making sure there is a like-for-like replacement at the station.”

He said that Gloucester Green would be much better used as part of the city’s retail centre.

About £70m has been set aside for the expansion of the railway station, which will include extra platforms to accommodate extra services using the planned new links to London Marylebone and Milton Keynes via Bicester, in conjunction with the electrification and resignalling of the Oxford to London route via Didcot. These projects are due to be operating by 2017.

Proposals to create an integrated transport hub in Oxford date back to the late 1940s, when the Great Westerna nd London Midland & Scottish railways proposed a rebuilt station, with a bus station alongside, on land now occupied by Oxford University’s Said Business School, which was then the site of the LMS’s Rewley Road station.

Other suggestions have included moving the railway station south to Oxpens, near to where coaches already park between journeys, and developing this area instead.

But this has since been ruled out by Network Rail, which said the site was unsuitable for use as a station.

The Oxpens area is set to be redeveloped for housing and offices instead.

Hugh Jaeger, a representative of campaign groups Railfuture and Bus Users UK, said he was in favour of better integration between buses and trains.

He added: “We need a station that has a much bigger and better bus space but the argument is where to put it.

“If we’re going to go for redeveloping the existing station, then the only way to do it is by reducing the size of the car park.”

But he said it might not be “clever” to move express coaches out to Redbridge and make people change to buses to and from the city centre to connect with express coaches for London.

In January, Network Rail submitted its plan for the development of the railways between 2014 and 2019 to the Office of Rail Regulation, which will publish its decision on the proposals in October.

A spokesman for Network Rail said the Oxford station redevelopment scheme was still in its early stages and funding had not yet been secured, so she did not know when work might start.