A NOISE barrier installed in a street in Littlemore has been criticised for making residents feel like they are “living on an industrial estate”.

People who live in Spring Lane say it is the latest in a long line of problems they have had since nine business units were built in neighbouring Sandy Lane West last year.

The barrier was put up this week just days after Oxford City Council approved a planning variation that allowed the buildings to remain unchanged despite being taller than original planning permission had allowed.

Spring Lane resident Amanda Rogers said she was upset by the new barrier.

The mum-of-three said: “It is horrendous – it looks like we live on an industrial site.

“We are all feeling a bit let down, to put it mildly.

“There is nothing we can do now, but the whole development has affected the value of properties and the country feel of the lane is gone.

“The developer is meant to be doing a lot of beautiful planting where the hedge used to be but it will take years for it all to grow to what it was like before.”

Developer Kier Property was given permission to build the units in March and allowed to remove a hedge between the construction site and Spring Lane as part of the work as long as it was replaced by new plants.

The hedge was removed in December but residents said they were worried new shrubbery would not be a like-for-like replacement.

At the city council’s east area planning committee meeting on January 6, Kier Property was told it must come up with a new landscaping scheme within three months due to the buildings being taller than planned.

But Maureen Kimber, 80, who has lived in Spring Lane with her husband Alan for 33 years, said new landscaping plans would not help.

She said: “The sound barrier is absolutely horrible. It is like something you would put around a building site.

“The developers have said they will put hedging in to hide it but how will they hide that? It will take years to grow.

“We are really disappointed by the whole thing. This is the latest in a long line of problems we have had with this development – they are taking the mickey.”

The industrial buildings were meant to be 7.55m high to the eaves and 8.85m to the ridge, but are eight metres to the eaves and 9.95m to the ridge.

The developer said this was due to a variation in the ground level and because thicker materials were used than originally planned.

Littlemore parish councillor Dorian Hancock said: “It is a very sad state of affairs.

“The sound barrier is the Great Wall of Spring Lane – it is in your face.

“The people of Spring Lane are going to have to live with the development day-in, day-out.”