VILLAGERS threw their support behind a crucial planning document they hope will influence a 1,400-home site set to be built on their doorstep.

More than 92 per cent of voters chose to back the Hailey Neighbourhood Plan in a referendum four years in the making on Thursday.

The plan aims to give residents more control over future development in the area, but parish council chair, Graham Knaggs, said land earmarked for homes north of Witney was the ‘elephant in the room’.

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The 1,400-home North Witney Strategic Development Area (SDA), part of West Oxfordshire District Council’s Local Plan, is in Hailey parish and Mr Knaggs admitted it was the main issue for many residents.

He said: “At the start, it was mixed up in the expectation we would be influencing North Witney, which at the time wasn’t established in the local plan. We’re now coming up with aspirational policies instead.

“We don’t want Hailey to merge into Witney, so we’re focusing on preserving the gap between the two.”

The plan covers 2015 to 2031, with voter turnout at 35 per cent, 299 people in favour and 25 against.

Residents will be consulted on an issues paper for North Witney this autumn, with construction set to start after 2021.

But the site would have to conform to Hailey’s neighbourhood plan - and vice versa - which calls for new developments in the area to include only about 15 homes per site.

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Despite this, a questionnaire put to residents before the vote found almost 20 per cent of residents polled wanted no new houses in Hailey.

But Mr Knaggs is frustrated some of the parish council's preferred housing sites were cut from the local plan, with land at Giernalls Road the only one of four locations to gain outline planning permission.

He added: “We’d like to see more young people in the village to make it more vibrant.

"We’ve got a large proportion of big detached houses or stone cottages, which are out of young people’s price range.”

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The plan also wants to reduce speeding on the B4022 and install a toucan crossing outside Hailey Primary School, while its Dark Night Skies policy safeguards sky quality - potentially impacting the amount of light emitted from North Witney.

Jeff Haine, cabinet member for strategic planning, said: “The district council is very supportive of the desire to see more housing for local people – across West Oxfordshire – and there has been development on a number of rural exception sites in more rural parts of the district, including Bampton, Milton-under-Wychwood and North Leigh.

"However, we also have a responsibility to make sure that any housing development is of the highest standard and it is our role as the planning authority to ensure a balance is found between quantity and quality."