PARKING spaces for 23 more residents will be created in Blackbird Leys despite concerns raised by county council highways managers.

New spaces on the grass verges lining Pegasus Road were approved by Oxford City Council at a meeting on Wednesday.

Three parcels of land will be paved with red brick and turned into separate parking areas.

Despite similar spaces being granted further along Pegasus Road last year, Oxfordshire County Council objected to the new plans.

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East area planning committee chairman Roy Darke said: “They said that these spaces would encourage car ownership on the estate.

“It seemed slightly strange considering there had been no objections to the previous plans.

“It didn’t seem very logical. I was a little bit unsympathetic.

“This is on the edge of the city in a community which is not the most affluent.

“The idea that those families might be looking for second or third cars in the area is unlikely.”

County council spokesman Dominic Llewellyn-Jones said: “The county council has not objected in principle to the parking spaces but merely wish to see that they are used for the intended purpose.

“A concern was that they may be used as overflow spaces for the nearby leisure centre and in the absence of any clear plan to prevent this, the council raised a holding objection.”

Nine spaces will go in front of numbers 96 to 104, three next to the garages at the front of 92 and 94, and 11 will be in front of numbers 72 and 74.

The spaces are part of the city council’s Great Estates project, which spreads across Barton, Wood Farm and Marston.

A total of £450,000 will be spent this financial year improving communal areas on estates.

Council officer Matthew Parry said in a report to the committee: “Many roads within the Blackbird Leys estate are subject to significant parking pressure.

“When the estate was constructed in the 1950s, levels of car ownership were far lower than they are today and so little off-street car parking was provided.

“Increased car ownership has led to cars being forced to park on the streets with the result that some of the roads are often congested, leaving residents frequently unable to park near their homes.”

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