plans to charge for parking at an expanding Oxford sportsground have been dropped.

Users at Oxford City Football Club and the Oxsrad centre, which provides specialist facilities for disabled people, have celebrated the council u-turn.

Oxford City Council announced last autumn it was planning to impose parking charges at Court Place Farm carpark in Marston, an area set to benefit from a £2m Community Arena development The charges were set to be 50p for up to an hour, £1 for one to three hours and £2 for three to 24 hours.

But after complaints from the neighbouring Oxsrad sports centre and Oxford City Football Club, the plans have now been shelved.

Oxsrad manager Paul Saxton said: “It would have been a nightmare. We complained and I know the football club did, too.

“That car park is just a wasteland and the council weren’t planning to do anything to it.

“People wouldn’t have parked there if there had been a charge, they would have come into our car park and taken up disabled spaces.”

Oxsrad’s Enablement Officer Paul Guest added that parking was a particularly important issue for the centre.

He said: “If all our spaces are full then people who are less mobile find it difficult to get to the centre,” he said.

The £2m expansion of the football club site will include a full-size artificial grass pitch, pavilion and six floodlit netball courts, and is due to be completed by October.

Mr Saxton said: “I know people locally were up in arms about it, too. They were worried people would stop using the car park and stop in their roads instead.”

Oxford City is the largest participation club in the county, with more than 30 teams and 150 volunteer staff and coaches.

Managing director Colin Taylor said: “We are delighted at that decision. I think it is the right decision to make for football and all sports. We are all doing whatever we can to encourage people to play sport, especially coming up to the Olympics, and that was moving in the wrong direction.”

He added: “The new development is taking shape now and is on course to open in October.

“We are delighted this complication has been taken away and we can fully concentrate on that now.”

An Oxford City Council spokesman yesterday confirmed that it was shelving the parking charges plan at Court Place Farm.

And proposed charges have also been dropped at Horspath Recreation Area, after the council decided it would not be feasible.

But car park charges at other parks in the city are still due to be put in place at: Hinksey Park, Walton Well Road, Alexander Court, Cutteslowe Park, Harbord Road, and Marsh recreation ground.