CONTROVERSIAL plans for a new yoga studio have been given permission for a second time.

The scheme was passed last month but 14 city councillors said they wanted the application looked at again, citing residents’ concerns.

On Tuesday, the proposal for Osney Island was discussed by the council’s planning review committee and once again accepted.

Read also:

'New Oxford Sainsbury's must be banned from selling booze during big games'

As a result, a single storey building in East Street will be demolished and the two-storey yoga studio put up in its place.

Oxford Mail:

The studio building set to be demolished.

Some residents fiercely opposed the plan, warning the council it would ‘change the nature’ of East Street and create unacceptable noise.

Others warned of the impact they felt the demolition would have on the West Oxford Conservation Area.

But the project’s applicants and the council insisted the hut that will be replaced holds no particular architectural merit and that it would not endanger the conservation area’s status.

Read again:

Unlicensed pilot fined £2,000

James Pritchard, the applicant, said the building currently contains asbestos and that there had been a ‘groundswell of support’ in favour of the new development.

Residents of East Street hung a banner from the building at the weekend, calling for the council to ‘Save Osney’s Studio’

. One resident said they worried 1,400 people might visit it in a week.

Oxford Mail:

But Mr Pritchard insisted visitor numbers would be far lower. In fact, he said, those numbers had been arrived at by calculating use if the studio was ‘rammed full’ with clients.

Adrian James, the architect who designed the new yoga studio, told councillors that the ‘modest’ new building would replace the ‘decrepit’ single storey unit.

The current building in East Street was built in 1926. It has been used as a dairy, a boiler room and an artist’s studio.