A COMMUNITY room on a North Oxford estate is still locked to residents four years after it was built.

When Oxford City Council gave developer Berkeley Homes planning permission to build the Waterways Estate on the former Oxford Automotive site in 2005, planners insisted 400sq metres of ‘community facilities’ must open before the first residents moved into their new homes.

But six years on, the room eventually built for community groups to use has never opened, despite years of negotiations about how it should be run.

Residents on the estate have now launched a campaign to get it open.

Ron Harper, 49, from Ryder Close, said: “The community is outraged.

“There is a room meant to be for residents to use, and we are all locked out of it. We are not asking for anything other than what was originally granted planning permission.

“The building was under construction when I moved into my home six years ago.

“By the time it opened, what was meant to be a 400sq metre community room had been whittled down to a box room to serve 600 homes on the estate.

“But anything is better than nothing, and there are lots of people who could benefit from using it.”

Councillor Jim Campbell said: “It is a real shock horror story.

“I think councillors, including myself, and planners, failed to insist on the size and use of the community facility. Since then, a series of limits have been put in place and what is there has never been in use.”

Prospective residents had hoped the bulk of the building, in Clear Water Place, would be used for a pub, community hall or doctors’ surgery when it was built.

But nine months after the original planning permission was granted, planners agreed the building could be used by a nursery.

A first floor community meeting room, big enough for a dozen people, was kept in the plans.

In July 2007, the building was sold for £2.3m to Harmsworth Pension Trustees Ltd, since when, the community room has remained locked.

The Oxford Mail was unable to contact the pension trust to ask why.

Miles Thompson, from the Waterways management committee, which has been negotiating with the building’s owners, said: “There is a good deal of frustration among some residents.

“They do not understand why it is proving so difficult to sort out.

“It has been down to issues involving the lease, and restrictions that we are being asked to accept.

“There have been delays that have been down to the landlords, and other parts where we have to hold our hands up and say we did not act as quickly as we would have liked.”

Oxford City Council spokesman Annette Cunningham said: “Parties have been trying to resolve the matter by negotiation.

“If enforcement action is required it should only ever be undertaken when other avenues have been exhausted.”