A COMMUNITY centre on the verge of falling apart will be knocked down and replaced with a new eco-friendly building.

Bullingdon Community Centre in Headington is set to be demolished and replaced by a new building following a meeting of Oxford City Council's east area planning committee on Wednesday.

Richard Bryant, secretary of the Bullingdon Community Association, welcomed the new building, and told the committee it was the result of a 'long struggle.'

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In the run-up to the planning meeting, important background work was finished which meant the council-owned centre was likely to go ahead.

This included £1.4 million of funding for the demolition of the old building and construction of the new centre, agreed by the city council meeting on January 27.

The new building would contain a main hall, kitchen, office and storage with a central atrium and an entrance lobby, on roughly the same footprint as the current old building.

Oxford Mail:

Bullingdon Community Centre users, including Richard Bryant, right. Picture: Damian Halliwell.

Speaking for users of the community centre, Mr Bryant said: "We are looking forward with great anticipation to having a new, nearly, zero-energy building."

But he added there were concerns about the car park at the building.

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He said: "We have some reservations about having permanent lighting in the car park at night, in our view this would adversely affect any wildlife and might also attract people to hang around the cark park and community centre after it has been closed."

A council officer told Mr Bryant the lighting in the car park would not remain on all night, but there would be security lighting around the building which would remain on through the night.

Oxford Mail:

Design for the new Bullingdon Community Centre by Jessop and Cook Architects.

Labour councillor John Tanner asked for more details information on what the zero-energy kudos of the building actually meant.

Council officers and architects from Jessop and Cook told him it mainly related to the solar panels on the roof, and the way the building was insulated, though the building does not use 'grey water' for flushing toilets.

The costs of rebuilding the Bullingdon Community Centre steeply rose after Oxford City Council discovered in 2018 it had been built on top of an old quarry site.