A PLAN to convert a convenience store into flats will be decided by councillors next week.

If approved, the Londis store in Hailey Road, Witney, a garage and two three-bedroom flats would be converted into eight flats.

Owners Krupesh and Meena Patel said they want to convert their store into flats after suffering from ‘significantly increased’ competition nearby.

In planning documents available on the West Oxfordshire District Council website, Mr and Mrs Patel said it was ‘time to review the situation’.

They state increasing competition ‘has taken away almost half their trade’.

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The documents continue: “It is becoming increasingly difficult for them, despite the long hours they work, to keep the shop viable.

“Understandably, they see it as time to review the situation and assess if the property as a whole would better serve both themselves and the community, by being converted into flats.”

West Oxfordshire District Council’s planning officers said they are happy for the plan to go ahead and found the proposals ‘acceptable’.

But Witney Town Council said they did not want it to get approval because of worries about parking.

It also said it wanted to see ‘secure cycle storage for two bicycles per property included, even if this means the loss of one of the proposed flats’.

But the district council said it would give Hailey Road a ‘more spacious visual appearance within the streetscene’.

Five people have opposed the project going ahead and the authority’s Lowlands Area planning sub-committee will be asked to make a decision next Monday.

To take a look at the application on the district council’s website, visit westoxon.org.uk and search 19/01048/FUL on the authority’s planning portal.

The meeting will take place in committee room 1 in Woodgreen, Witney.