A CIVIC group has warned plans for up to 190 new homes at Wolvercote’s former paper mill could worsen traffic and air pollution in North Oxford.

The redevelopment of the site off Mill Road was first proposed 10 years ago by landowner Oxford University but has undergone a series of changes after discussions with local groups.

Half of the houses would be affordable, with the scheme including a 300sq m doctor’s surgery, office buildings, a community centre and a lagoon.

But Oxford Civic Society says the development is still too big and will cause gridlock on the city’s already busy roads, as well as increased pollution.

Group chairman Peter Thompson said: “This is a brownfield site and it would be very desirable to fill it up with housing, but at the moment there is not the infrastructure in place, or plans for future infrastructure, to cope with the development. It needs to be scaled back.”

Oxford City Council’s west area planning committee will consider the scheme on Tuesday, with officers recommending it is approved.

The university does not want to develop the site itself and is expected to sell it.

Planning officers said the paper mill site was ‘crucial’ to the supply of new housing to help tackle Oxford’s housing crisis.

Buildings should be restricted to two-and-a-half storeys, their report said, with only some individual ‘useful’ buildings allowed to be three storeys high.

The university’s proposals follow more than a year of discussions with local groups, after previous plans were withdrawn in 2014.

Its latest scheme has not been opposed by either the Wolvercote Commoner’s Committee or the Wolvercote Neighbourhood Forum, but both said they still had concerns.

In a letter to the city council, the neighbourhood forum wrote: “It represents a very large increase in the size of Lower Wolvercote and this will not be easy to absorb.

“Residents were uneasy about this when the initial application was made and that unease remains.

“There was a very clear view that the plans should be scaled back to reduce the impact on the community.”

The forum also said a new doctor’s surgery was “highly desirable” and called on the city council to require key worker housing on the site.

The local authority said this was not part of its present policies and such a condition for housing was not considered reasonable.

Last time the plans were put forward Oxfordshire County Council raised concerns about its entrance on Godstow Road.

But the local authority said it now backed plans for a new mini-roundabout and said funding should be acquired for a high-frequency service of the Number 6 bus between the village and Oxford.

The Environment Agency – which previously said there would be issues on the site with flooding – said it had no objections to the development now proposed.