A former Oxford NHS site is to be used to provide 132 new homes.

Oxford City Council's Strategic Development Control committee has approved plans for 112 flats and 20 houses on the five acres once occupied by the Rivermead Rehabilitation Centre.

The prime site on the city's southern fringe to the east of Abingdon Road and next to the Weir's Mill Stream has been unused since the rehabilitation centre was transferred to the Nuffield Orthopaedic Centre in Headington.

A two-storey, red-brick Victorian lodge, still standing on the land, will be retained as a marketing office for the developers, Linden Homes.

On completion of the development, the lodge will be donated to the Oxfordshire Association for the Blind, with some adjoining land, as a resource centre.

Strategic development officer Murray Hancock reported that there were a further one or two attractive Victorian buildings on the plot, plus many poor-quality single-storey structures and a water tower.

None of these buildings are so valuable as to warrant retention," he said.

Most of the flats will occupy the centre of the site. The 20 houses will be built with three short terraces on the northern side. Land to the north-east is prone to flooding.

Although the committee voted six-one in favour of the application, there was strong opposition from Maureen Christian, the Labour councillor for Headington Hill and Northway.

"This is an incredibly beautiful site and what we're seeing here is another classic lost opportunity," she said.

"Why is the new domestic architecture in Oxford so hideous? Is it that demand for housing is so great that anything sells and there's no challenge for architects to produce quality?"