OXFORD City Council's contentious plan to extend Seacourt Park and Ride car park onto the floodplain could have been avoided by building a multi-storey car park, a senior councillor has said – but the council went for the cheaper option.

The council's former planning boss Colin Cook made the revelation to a meeting of Oxford Flood Alliance.

It comes after months of emotionally-charged opposition from neighbours in Botley Road, Oxford Flood Alliance and even Oxfordshire Badger Group.

The council wants to expand the 794-space car park with 685 more spaces, largely to take extra visitors to the new Westgate shopping centre when it is finished.

Many fear that building on the green field site which often floods in heavy rainfall would increase the risk to nearby properties.

At the flood alliance meeting on February 22, a member of public asked Mr Cook why the council did not just build a second storey on the car park, as the temporary double-deck car park at nearby Oxpens Road had proved popular.

Mr Cook replied: "A while ago was told it was because of a covenant on that piece of land that we weren't allowed to building anything.

"Subsequently I've found that not to be the case.

"There is a lease that doesn't permit building but that is not to say that, through negotiation, the city council couldn't arrange for decking to come to pass.

"My understanding is that it would have cost more than this proposal: those are financial discussions rather than planning, but I suspect that is why the officers have gone down the route they have."

Council spokesman Chofamba Sithole confirmed officers did indeed have negotiation with the landowner, Midcounties Co-op, which leases the site to the council, about the possibility of building a multi-storey carpark, but he said: "Unfortunately terms were not able to be agreed."

He went on to say that even if the council and landowner had been able to reach an agreement to release the covenant, the double-decker solution 'did not allow for sufficient capacity to be delivered'.

He said: "The key issue here that precluded further significant analysis is it is simply not possible to achieve the number of spaces needed on the existing site.

"Even if there were, the cost of providing this option is far in excess of the current proposals and would become economically unviable.

"The proposal submitted offers the only long term cost effective solution which delivers the additional capacity required on this essential infrastructure project."

Mr Sithole would not say how many spaces the multi-storey solution could have delivered, but he insisted it would not have been enough to meet demand.

He would not say how much the multi-storey solution would have cost.

The council car park team's planning application to extend Seacourt is due to be decided by the council's planning committee this month.