VALE of White Horse District Council is dumping its housing problems on Didcot’s doorstep, the town council leader says.

New figures reveal Didcot could double in size as more houses are planned to be built around the town.

An extra 400 homes – on top of 2,150 already announced – have been earmarked to be built west of Didcot as part of the Vale of White Horse District Council local plan.

Didcot lies in South Oxfordshire District Council, but the border with the Vale is just west of the town.

Didcot Town Council leader Margaret Davies said: “This is a substantial social shock and I am very worried about the traffic situation.

“We are being sliced into a sandwich between the Vale and South Oxfordshire. Vale seem to solve their housing problems by dumping them on Didcot.

“Didcot would double and the people who live in those houses would be very isolated from the town and its services.”

Vale published its draft local plan last year in which it planned sites for 13,000 new homes, mostly in Wantage, Grove and Didcot.

But that number was based on the regional South East Plan, and has since been scrapped by the Government.

To calculate a new figure, all five Oxfordshire districts had to re-estimate their housing need with a Strategic Housing Market Assessment (SHMA).

Oxford Mail: Matthew BarberMatthew Barber

But the Vale published its own figure, and its idea of where homes should be built, in its new draft Local Plan for development on Friday.

Vale leader Matthew Barber said: “As part of the local plan we are producing an area action plan for Didcot to look at the detail of infrastructure, including community infrastructure.

“We don’t want any of the communities we build to be just stuck on, that is why it is important that we plan ahead.

“The real hard slog is when you build the houses, working out how to build the community as well.”