An Oxford City council area committee meeting had to be abandoned at the last minute because not enough members turned up.

The north east area committee planning meeting was postponed last night (September 28) when only five out of 12 councillors turned up. Six councillors were needed to make the meeting legal.

More than 30 members of the public, many of them wanting to pledge their support or objections to the six planning applications on the agenda, went home disappointed.

Council officers had spent time setting out chairs, tables and overhead projectors ready for the meeting -- at Wood Farm Primary School, in Titup Hall Drive -- which should have started at 6pm.

Committee chairman Dee Sinclair was present with council members Mary Clarkson, Maureen Christian, Patrick Murray and Tia MacGregor.

Mrs Sinclair said: "It's very embarrassing and I am cross. We needed six people to make it quorate."

Tracy Roper, of Gladstone Road, Headington, said: "I was disappointed and felt embarrassed for the councillors that were there."

Mrs Roper was set to voice the concerns of residents over plans to demolish the former Headington Nursery School, in William Kimber Crescent, and build housing for adults with disabilities.

Mike Nash, 38, was there because he had applied for planning permission to transform a three-bedroom house in Grovelands Road into two flats.

He said: "This sort of thing is a fact of life, but it's very disappointing."

Tony Joyce, chairman of the co-ordinating committee of Headington residents associations, said: "It is extremely disappointing because all the people who turned up will have had a special interest in one or other of the applications and will wonder what has happened to the city council's organisation."

Councillors were annoyed too. Mrs Clarkson said: "I arranged for a babysitter, whom I will have to pay, because my husband gets home later."

Mrs Christian said: "I had an opportunity to see a show tonight, but I turned it down to come here."

Mrs MacGregor added: "I left my four-and-a-half week old baby with my mother."

Area co-ordinator Angela Cristofoli had received apologies for absence from Susan Brown, Stephen Tall and David Rundle.

She said: "Alex Hollingsworth called to say he would be late because he was stuck in traffic."

Claire Kent arrived at 6.45pm because she said she was at the council's community scrutiny committee, but by that time the majority of people had left.

Tony Gray and Caroline van Zyl did not turn up and Mrs Cristofoli had not received apologies from them. No alternative date has been arranged and the meeting cannot be reconvened until October 8.