Thunderous applause echoed throughout Didcot Civic Hall tonight as the town council promised never to surrender its lease on Ladygrove Park.

Didcot Town Council rallied together to unanimously vote it would not surrender its lease on the Ladygrove Park, stopping plans for a technology institute on the site.

Leader of the council Bill Service said it and Didcot residents would not be bullied by South Oxfordshire District Council.

He said: "I have been told I am not ambitious enough but our ambition is on our terms.

"Didcot is not a community where they think they can just come in and bulldoze it and build more houses."

Tensions in the town have run high since the district council published a draft master plan of the Didcot Garden Tpwn programme, in which 17 per cent of Ladygrove Park would have been built on.

Mr Service added: "It may only be 17 per cent but if they build on it we will never get it back."

Leader of South Oxfordshire District Council John Cotton said after the meeting that he could understand the town's emotion but said only draft ideas had been put forward.