Demolished hotel set to be converted into six new homes

Plans have been submitted to redevelop the former Oxfordshire Inn site in Heathfield, Kidlington with six new homes on the old function hall plot.

Applicant Investfront Ltd is seeking permission for six two and three-bedroom houses in three pairs of semi-detached cottages, replacing an earlier consent for two larger detached properties.

The complex, which is set off the A34, has a long and chequered planning history dating back to a 60-bedroom hotel scheme approved by the Secretary of State in 1992, which was never fully built out.

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Instead, the site evolved incrementally through a series of permissions in the early 2000s that created bedroom wings and later saw the hotel accommodation converted into flats, with eight dwellings signed off in 2016.

The function hall, which once housed the bar, dining room, reception and admin areas, was demolished in December 2025 under a bat licence as part of partially implementing the two-house scheme.

The inn itself closed around 2017, leaving a sprawling hard-surfaced site surrounded by a nursing home, riding stables and mobile home park.

Planning documents describe the land as previously developed “grey belt” and argue that, while six homes would increase the number of properties, the overall footprint and volume would still sit below that of the former inn buildings.

Agents say the scheme would not cause “substantial harm” to the green belt and should benefit the housing land supply shortfall.