CAMPAIGNERS fighting to stop ash being dumped in a former gravel pit near Abingdon are optimistic after the Government said it needed more time to look into the issue.

The Government Office of the South East (GOSH) is reviewing the decision of Oxfordshire County Council to allow RWE npower to dump thousands of tonnes of waste fuel ash from Didcot Power Station into Thrupp Lake in Radley.

Campaigners Save Radley Lakes want ministers to order a public inquiry into the plan.

The deadline for a final decision on whether to call in the planning application was due on Tuesday but GOSH has now asked for more time to study the evidence.

Save Radley Lakes campaigners, who have been fighting the plan and submitted objections to the inquiry, hope the delay may lead to a public inquiry being held.

Campaigner Linda Pasquire, of Save Radley Lakes, said: "We do not want to pre-empt any decision but we would like to see the planning application called in so there would be a proper inquiry into what has been going on.

"The holding order might only be a temporary stay of execution. In effect the Government has received a large bundle of papers and reports to read, and the Department to whom this application has been referred would have been hard pressed to look at everything it needed to in the statutory period of three weeks."

Chris Cousins, head of sustainable development at Oxfordshire County Council, said: "It is quite normal for the Secretary of State to ask for more time to consider applications. We await the comments of Ruth Kelly before the situation moves on."

The application can be called in to the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, Ruth Kelly, if it is deemed controversial enough.