MOVES to transform a shabby Oxford car park into a canal basin could be boosted by a radar survey of the site.

Campaigners are hoping a survey will establish that the city's historic canal basin has survived underneath the Worcester Street car park.

And the Friends of Oxford Canal and Basin (Foxcan) said its discovery would remove major obstacles to the Nuffield College-owned car park becoming a 'floating hotel' surrounded by restaurants.

A new survey from British Waterways suggests that creating "a vibrant water-based piazza" would attract more than 250,000 visitors a year, generating at least £1m for the local economy.

Foxcan spokesman Hugh Jaeger said: "We suspect that the Georgian basin may have survived, full of rubble from buildings around it, demolished in the 1940s. If so, the basin is a part of our heritage that could be excavated and restored to practical use."

Mr Jaeger said he was persuaded that the basin had been filled in after speaking to people living in Oxford in the 1940s who remember its disappearance.

He now hoped that a radar survey could help clear the way for a working canal basin, used by visiting narrowboats.

The group believes that as well as making the work cheaper, the discovery of the basin walls would open the way for grant applications to be made to heritage bodies.

Foxcan is also pressing for the scheme to be given greater priority by Oxford City Council.

Later today, a petition will be delivered by narrowboat to Oxford Lord Mayor Jim Campbell, who will meet campaigners at Hythe Bridge Street.

The petition says the reinstatement of a canal basin should be included as the preferred option for the site in the planning blueprint for the regeneration of Oxford's West End. Mr Jaeger feared the city council's draft West End Area Action Plan exaggerated both the scale of the engineering works and the cost of purchasing land. And he said there might be no need for costly locks.

John Goddard, leader of Oxford City Council, said: "The West End Action Plan has not been adopted.

"The consultation is going ahead now. I am personally keen to have water there."

He hoped a deal could eventually be reached with Nuffield College, which could possibly involve a land swap with the college.

The basin site was bought by Lord Nuffield in 1937 and his new college was built on the site of a coal wharf next to New Road. Calls for the restoration of the canal were given new urgency following reports that the Westgate Transport Group had identified the car park as a turnaround point for buses.

Nuffield bursar Gwilym Hughes said: "We understand that the draft area action plan for the West End must produce options for the Worcester Street site which properly reflect its importance.

"The lobbying of Foxcan does not seem to support this process and ignores the fact that the history of this site also includes its purchase by William Morris to enable the foundation of Nuffield College."