A SECOND plan to turn a long-standing Chinese takeaway into a Japanese restaurant has been submitted to the city council.

The owners of Kowloon House in Walton Street, Jericho want to build an extension onto the back of the site to make the business more viable.

In an application submitted to the city council earlier this week, architects state: "We assessed other food outlets and restaurants in Walton Street, and elsewhere in and around the centre of Oxford, in order to see what makes them vibrant and viable.

"It is apparent to us that many have increased their attractiveness to customers by exploiting their basement areas and often also extending to the rear.

"To enable this proposal to be viable, an enhancement of the seating areas is needed, hence the request within this application for a single storey rear extension."

An earlier plan had been submitted earlier in the year, but the most recent one overrides that.

A new 'suite of toilets' would also need to be built and would be contained within the building's basement.

The new extension is said to be 'modest in height and scale, compared to the host building'. But its size has been reduced following the earlier plans.

The project is not anticipated to mean any more noise for residents. The extension will be 'sealed and linked to the existing building and does not have activities proposed within it that could lead to unacceptable noise levels locally'.