A PICTURESQUE Oxfordshire village is “under siege” from housing developments, campaigners have warned.

Chilton near Didcot lies in the North Wessex Downs Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB) and should not have housing built there at all, the area’s directors have said.

But Vale of White Horse District Council has proposed building 1,400 homes in green fields near the village in its draft Local Plan for development until 2031.

If approved by the government later this year, the plan will become a legal document, allowing developers to build there.

North Wessex AONB director Henry Oliver said: “These areas are designated as the most outstanding landscapes in the country, they have the same status as national parks.

“This area has the same status in planning law as Snowdonia or the Lake District and local authorities are required to have regard for the reason it was designated – to conserve and enhance the natural beauty.”

He said The North Wessex Downs was “one of the largest unspoilt tracts of open countryside in southern England. It is a great swathe of chalk downland with chalk streams, iron age monuments and eight white horses”.

Mr Oliver added: “These areas are not supposed to have major developments unless developers can show exceptional circumstances why it is in the public interest.”

He said the proposed 1,400 homes near Harwell science campus would effectively create a new “small town” a few miles north of the Ridgeway. The group has written to the Vale urging reconsideration.

The council has had to find sites for 20,500 homes in the district in its Local Plan after a government-recommended Strategic Housing Market Assessment. But in the past few months, it has received additional speculative planning applications for another 167 green fields around Chilton.

Chris Broad, Chilton Parish Council chairman, warned the village’s roads, schools and public services were already at capacity and said some children have not been able to get a place in the village school.

“Chilton accepts the need for more housing, and we have recently had 275 houses built at Harwell Campus, which has increased the population of the village by 80 per cent.

“It is now important to protect the AONB as accessible countryside close to the expanding Didcot.”