CITY councillors will have a second look at a proposal for a controversial yoga studio which residents have complained will disrupt them in West Oxford.

The council’s West Area planning committee voted to pass the application for East Street earlier this month but it will face a second panel next week.

Residents claimed the yoga studio would ‘shatter’ their peaceful lives aside the River Thames and sought a legal opinion from a lawyer ahead of the first planning committee.

But the council’s planning lawyer, Sarah De La Coze, said she felt it had no ‘firm basis’ for residents to appeal if the council passed the application at the committee on April 9.

Extraordinarily, the 14 councillors who have asked for the application to be heard again appear to side with the residents’ lawyer rather than the council’s own.

In a call-in, they say: “The neighbours employed a barrister to advise them.

“It seems that the council’s planning lawyer’s response is open to challenge on several points.”

The only councillor to vote against the application last month, Labour’s Dan Iley-Williamson, has backed the call for it to be looked at again.

The council previously said it felt the one storey garage is ‘an important break in the uniformity of the street’.

But those councillors unhappy with the application being passed said the planned two storey studio would not continue that ‘break’.

Terraced houses along the street are also two storeys tall.

If the yoga studio is built, the equivalent of three jobs would be created, developers have said.

All councillors who have called the application in represent Labour, except Sajjad Malik.

Deputy Lord Mayor Mr Malik is currently an independent after being suspended by the party last month.

Oxford West and Abingdon MP Layla Moran submitted a comment regarding the application earlier this month after being contacted by a constituent.

She said although there had been parking concerns with other city yoga studios, ‘public benefit appears to favour visitors to the studio’.

The council’s planning review committee will be asked to approve the application at a meeting in Oxford Town Hall next Tuesday.