A DRUM tutor who has been told he can no longer teach at his home is hoping to convince the city council to reconsider.

Darren Hasson-Davis, who lives in Freelands Road in East Oxford, was refused permission by Oxford City Council to use a shed in his garden for drumming lessons. He had been using the studio for two years.

He has now recruited his councillor, lord Mayor Elise Benjamin, to help him.

He said: “This is my livelihood. I don’t want people to feel annoyed, but I just want to negotiate on this.

“The council is being very unfair and it is frustrating.

“If I could have some amount of teaching, even if it is just a couple of hours, that would be fair.”

Mr Hasson-Davis, who has been teaching children to play the drums for 10 years, is now teaching in schools.

Ms Benjamin will be organising a meeting between Mr Hasson-Davis and officers from the city council’s planning and environmental health departments.

She said: “I think the council has been slightly too inflexible on this.

“There is room for negotiation and I’ll do my best to find common ground.”

In December Mr Hasson-Davis, who teaches about 70 children, was told by the council to stop drumming in his shed or face enforcement action for breaking planning laws.

In February he applied to the council for retrospective planning permission, handing in a petition with 160 signatures in support.

While some of his neighbours had complained, others wrote in with their support.

Mike Morris, a neighbour of Mr Hasson-Davis in Freelands Road, said: “We haven’t experienced problems with noise, parking or unsociable behaviour and feel Darren is contributing a useful service to the community.”

City council planning officers refused him permission to change the use of his garden shed for commercial use because the position of the building meant it was “likely to result in a level of noise that would be considered a nuisance to the occupiers of adjacent dwellings”.

Council spokesman Louisa Dean said: “We are trying to engage with the resident to confirm whether he is still using his property as a business.

“We are yet to hear from him.”