PLANS are being drawn up to create a new city centre car park at Oxpens near Oxford ice rink.

It is being proposed as a replacement for the multi-storey Westgate car park, which is being demolished as part of the redevelopment of the Westgate shopping centre.

Developers say the Oxpens car park will be built as a temporary structure, to be removed once the new car park for up to 1,300 vehicles is completed.

The temporary car park is having to be created because the start of work on the £330m retail centre is to be delayed, with a late inquiry into compulsory purchase orders being blamed.

The inquiry is not to be held until December. Developers say that work, due to start in the spring, will now be delayed until the summer. The consortium behind the development, Westgate Partnership, expressed confidence that the city's long-awaited new shopping centre would still open in the autumn of 2011 as planned.

But the legal dispute over compulsory purchases has forced the developers and Oxford City Council to rethink the timetable of work and how sufficient car parking spaces can be provided once demolition is under way.

Nadia Hart, spokesman for the Westgate Partnership, said: "We are presently in discussions with Oxford City Council and the county council to explore the possibility of providing temporary car parking at Oxpens.

"This facility will provide car parking for the period when the existing car park is demolished early in 2009. It will operate until the new multi-storey car park is completed late in that year."

The Oxpens car park is expected to resemble a larger version of the temporary car parking proposed for Bicester. As part of the Westgate deal, the developers agreed to provide a minimum of 900 car park spaces throughout the long period of construction.

Michael Crofton Briggs, head of planning at Oxford City Council, said the planning application had proposed keeping the current car park open, while its replacement was being built.

The old car park was to have been demolished only when the new one was largely completed and operational.

But a public hearing into the compulsory purchase of a number of properties meant the carefully worked out plans to minimise disruption were having to be reconsidered.

Mr Crofton Briggs said: "We always knew there would need to be an inquiry. The date confirmed in December is later than the one we pencilled in."

The public hearing will listen to the concerns of businesses and residents, whose properties will be bought to allow the scheme to go ahead. Those affected include multiple sclerosis sufferer Vincent McKeown, who says he is being forced out of his Abbey Place flat.

Mr Crofton Briggs said the site of the Oxpens car park was still under discussion. "We are aware of the uses and activities that go on in Oxpens, that need to be given careful consideration."

City councillor, Bob Price, feared that an Oxpens car park would create serious traffic flow problems into the city. He said: "I think difficult negotiations about access to the car park lie ahead. Oxpens is also further away from shops. It will certainly make shopping less attractive for people coming to Oxford with young children."

Mary Hodges, of the St Ebbe's New Development Residents' Association, said residents had always doubted whether the original parking plans would work. She warned that the ice rink car park area, bordered by a coach car park, would be too small to accommodate up to 900 cars. Ms Hodges said she feared that developers would seek to use Oxpens Meadow on the other side of the ice rink, which had been targeted for development in the 1990s. Building plans were abandoned in the face of a residents' campaign to protect a green area in the city centre.

She said the situation was further complicated with a question mark hanging over the future of the ice rink itself. The city council is actively looking for an alternative site for a combined ice rink-swimming pool.

Susanna Pressel, city councillor for Osney, said a promise to traders to maintain current levels of parking during the building period had been mistaken.

She said: "The best way to reduce congestion on Botley Road would have been to reduce the number of car parking spaces in the city centre."

The U-turn on parking follows claims that the city council had "botched" a deal with developers to compensate the city for the loss of the Westgate car park. It emerged the deal under-estimated the car park's real earning power for the city council, leaving the council with an annual budget shortfall of £400,000.