Residents in Jericho, Oxford, will today make a racket to persuade city councillors to vote against allowing an 11ft razor wire fence around a boatyard to remain for three years.

British Waterways erected the fence around the Castle Mill boatyard site after boaters were evicted from the site in May.

It plans to sell the land to housing developers and has applied for retrospective planning permission to retain the fence, which separates houses from the canal, for three years. Today residents, including pupils from St Barnabas Primary School, will sing The Battle of Jericho song outside the boatyard to prepare for their protest at the central, south and west area planning committee tomorrow.

Planning officers are recommending that British Waterways should be given permission to retain the fence for 18 months, and say it should be decorated within three months, with the razor wire removed.

Emmett Schlueter, 63, of St Barnabas Street, and his wife Patricia, 65, have been leading the protests.

Mr Schlueter has written to city council planning manager Michael Crofton-Briggs to say that residents are horrified by the recommendation to let the fence stay.

He said: "This suggests that the city council is not paying any attention whatsoever to the views expressed by many Jericho residents regarding this eyesore in our midst.

"How can you be so impervious to our wishes?

"The residents of Jericho are very angry and resentful and will not rest with your decision to approve this odious fence."

Mrs Schlueter added: "We want as many people to come to the planning meeting as possible."

Eugene Baston, a spokesman for British Waterways, said last month that they were forced to put up the razor wire because protesters had threatened to reoccupy the site. Plans for local schools to decorate the fence with artwork, have yet come to fruition.

The central, south and west area committee is being held tomorrow at 5.30pm, at the West Oxford Community Centre, in Botley Road.