A SECOND Costa Coffee drive-thru at Headington Retail Park will cause chaos on surrounding roads locals have warned after the new unit would mean the loss of dozens of parking spaces.

The coffee giant submitted plans last week for the outlet at the southern section of the existing car park at the retail park at Horspath Driftway.

If given the go ahead it would take out 40 car parking spaces and add just two customer car parking spots in its place as well as two disabled bays.

Residents and councillors have since warned that queueing traffic backing out on to one of the key access roads to the Oxford ring road may cause further traffic woes in the area.

Headington county councillor Roz Smith said: "They assume that 50 per cent of their customers will be from drivers using the car park already. But in their conclusion, and what I would really question, they say there wouldn't be an additional traffic impact on the greater highways network.

"I am not convinced there will be no impact on the greater highways network because if 50 per cent are coming just to use the car park that means we are going to see another 50 per cent coming in just to get a drive thru coffee.

"So I think there is going to be some impact on traffic movement from Horspath Driftway and toward Headington.

"We already have very slow traffic there so this could impact journey times for people. And we are soon going to have Aldi which will obviously generate more driving trips."

Local residents have blasted the plans on social media, too.

Andrew, writing on the Oxford Mail website, said: “It’s bad enough getting out of the Homebase site to turn right on to the bypass at the moment. Goodness knows what it will be like with both an Aldi and a Costa there.

“This will be the primary choice for a coffee for the tens of thousands of people who work at the Business Park and nearby.”

Another, anonymous user, said: “Agree with the comment above the junction of the Homebase site needs to be significantly improved before Aldi opens and drive thrus considered.”

A transport statement, prepared by Entran LTD for Costa, argued that after conducting surveys in July last year only 83 spaces were used at the retail park on average out of a maximum of 245.

The report argues: “The volume of additional traffic requiring car parking can easily be accommodated with the reconfigured car park and as a result, there will be no displaced car parking.

“Furthermore, this report has demonstrated that the site is accessible by all modes of travel and that there will be no impact on the greater highway network.”

Costa Coffee were contacted for comment.