BANBURY MP Tony Baldry has said more needs to be done to help families in North Oxfordshire find secure homes.

Speaking in the House of Commons, Mr Baldry said Banbury was one of the fastest-growing towns in the country.

But he feared "very little" new social housing would be built as part of a "huge" new housing development at Bankside and Bodicote.

The Tory MP said: "Working families on low incomes with children are finding it extremely difficult to gain access to secure housing.

"We are not seeing new social housing being introduced as part of the planning process for new development."

Working families on low incomes were finding themselves in a Catch 22 situation, Mr Baldry said.

"They are told by the housing authorities that if they go on to the housing waiting list they will probably have to remain on it for a long time.

"If they move into the private rented sector, they are told that they are adequately housed, so they drop off the social housing list.

"Those of us who are fortunate enough to own our own homes know that one benefit of home ownership is that we can do things in our own gardens and houses that those in private rented sector accommodation cannot do. What concerns me is where the new social housing is to come from."

Mr Baldry said he wanted to see more shared equity schemes, which allowed people to buy a stake in a home and increase it when they could afford to.

James Macnamara, Cherwell District Council's portfolio holder for housing, praised Mr Baldry's awareness of the problem.

Mr Macnamara said Cherwell's latest housing needs survey showed 400 more homes were needed for social housing each year than were currently being found.

He said about 700 families needed to be housed each year, but places for only about 300 were becoming available.

Mr Macnamara said Cherwell had promised to build 600 new affordable homes during the next five years but added that would still not be enough.

He said: "We need to increase supply as much as we possibly can, but clearly there are limits we can't concrete over the whole of Cherwell. There is always going to be greater need than we can possibly build."

Cherwell District Council's policy requires developers building 25 houses or more to allocate 30 per cent of the development for social housing.

Mr Macnamara said although other councils demanded more, 30 per cent was about right in Cherwell because of its rural location.

He said: "We are sensitive not to make it uneconomical for developers, because we can't make them build houses 30 per cent of a lot of houses is better than 50 per cent of none."

Mr Macnamara said he would like to see more Government money allocated for affordable housing. He fully supported the idea of shared equity schemes.