PLANS to demolish part of the former Wharf House pub, near the Westgate car park, Oxford, should be rejected, say city planning officers.

The pub, dating from the 1830s, is one of only a few buildings to survive the controversial redevelopment of St Ebbe's, the city suburb, 40 years ago.

Oxford city councillors will be recommended to reject an application to demolish the old pub's rear extension and roof to create six new flats.

Wharf House, which sits in an 'island' between Speedwell Street and Thames Street, had once been surrounded by warehouses and cranes, It had overlooked Friar's Wharf, the largest wharf and dock in Oxford. The basin was filled in shortly after the coming of the railways in the 1840s.

Much of the pub's original structure would have survived. But planning officer Mary Rowe said the loss of the main roof structure would ruin the Wharf's architectural integrity, eroding its "significance in the understanding of the area's historical development".

Debbie Dance, of Oxford Preservation Trust, said the building was one of the last remaining vestiges of the 19th-century river trade and the building should serve as an important local landmark in the regeneration of Oxford's West End.