The classic Joni Mitchell song Big Yellow Taxi could almost have been about the Oxford Canal Basin, writes Reg Little. "Don't it always seem to go, but you don't know what you've got 'till it's gone. They paved paradise and put up a parking lot."

Well, the Oxford Canal Basin was never exactly paradise. But suddenly everyone seems to be regretting filling-in the once famous Oxford landmark and turning it into the Worcester Street carpark.

At a presentation examining the idea of recreating the long-disappeared canal basin there was backing from canal users, city councillors and British Waterways.

Now it seems that the return of the 18th-century marvel could yet be one of the more popular and unexpected consequences of the Oxford Transport Strategy. Today, there are precious few clues that the carpark site was once a busy centre of trade, where coalboats unloaded much of the city's fuel.

For Mark Davies, co-author of Our Canal In Oxford, bringing back the canal basin would redress a few old wrongs.

"Among the dreaming spires and inspired dreamers, the canal's connotations of trade and commerce have always made it a poor second to Oxford's beloved River Isis.

"It's massive initial benefits have been conveniently forgotten over time and it has been variously ignored, feared and ridiculed for much of its history. "What a thrilling sight it would be, for locals and visitors alike, to have the canal back as the central showpiece, it truly was for Oxford in 1790," he says.

Brian Roberts, chairman of the Oxfordshire branch of the Inland Waterways Association, says a restored canal basin would give the city a new tourist attraction.

Allowing just ten boats to moor there would be the equivalent of a 60-bedroom hotel in the city centre, he argues. "If you want to imagine it, you only have to look at Stratford-upon-Avon and the basin close to Avon bridge," he says.

But Mr Roberts accepts that if the basin in Oxford was restored it would almost certainly be surrounded by new buildings. The site's owner, Nuffield College, has already said that the proposal is "attractive from the environmental point of view".

There can be little doubt that buildings overlooking water in central Oxford would make the plan highly lucrative too. The college presently leases the site to Oxford City Council.

The idea of reinstating the basin was floated several times in the 1980s. But, crucially, British Waterways has now expressed its wish for a feasibility study, insisting there are no practical obstacles stopping the restoration of the canal's route under Hythe Bridge Street.

For the leader of Oxford City Council, John Tanner, a reinstated canal basin would tie in perfectly with the city's transport plans. He says: "The Oxford Transport Strategy would make it possible to stop using the Worcester Street car park.

"There would have be more efficient use of the Westgate carpark."

Canal fact file:

*The first mile of the canal was dug near Coventry in 1769 and by 1788 it had reached Wolvercote.

*Convicts from the nearby Oxford Prison were used to build the canal terminus, known as the Hythe Bridge Wharf.

*The first coalboats unloaded their cargo on New Year's Day 1790 and the terminus was later extended to New Road, incorporating land known as Jews' Mount. *The Isis Lock was opened to the north of Hythe Bridge six years later to create a link with the Thames. The Oxford Canal Company built the impressive Canal House, overlooking the wharves in 1827.

*The New Road and Hythe Bridge sites were sold to Nuffield College in 1937. In the mid 1940s the canal route under Hythe Bridge was blocked off and the basin filled- in.

*Nuffield College buildings were completed on the New Road site in 1960.

Story date: Saturday 19 February

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.