Hundreds of new homes are being “dumped on Didcot” which the town cannot cope with, councillors have claimed.

Valley Park, to the west of Didcot, has been earmarked for 800 new homes, which would be built over the next 17 years.

The future development would sit next to Great Western Park, a 3,300-home development built over the last decade.

Councillors claim the extra 800 homes would overwhelm the roads, schools, and GP and dental surgeries in the area.

The Valley Park allocation comes in a new draft local plan developed by South Oxfordshire District Council and Vale of White Horse District Council.

It is the first time the two councils have worked together on a plan.

A previous local plan by Vale council had already earmarked 800 homes in Valley Park, and this has been carried forward into the joint document.

Councillors claim the Valley Park homes should have been scrapped. 

It comes after similar sites, including Chalgrove Airfield, saw their housing allocation removed in the latest plan.

Rather than new housing, Independent Vale councillor Sally Povolotsky, who represents Steventon and the Hanneys, said the area needed infrastructure.

She said: “We have residents suffering now from congestion, poor air quality, lack of school and specialist school places, doctors and primary healthcare.

“This fix is too far down the line, and unfair to our future residents to be squashed into one of the last bits of open space between Didcot and the A34.”

South Oxfordshire councillor Ian Snowdon, who represents Didcot West, said: “Didcot is chronically short of special schools places for SEND needs, allotments, cycle and road infrastructure, and let’s not forget the lack of GP surgeries and dentists.

“They are always promised, never delivered.

"It’s just more and more houses.

“Many of these houses are supposedly to meet Oxford unmet housing needs. So reallocating sites around Oxford and dumping them in Didcot as usual.”

A spokeswoman for the two councils said: “The 800 homes at North West Valley Park is not a new allocation, and has been in the Vale’s Local Plan for many years.

“It was found to be sound by an Inspector through the formal Local Plan examination process.

“We have suggested deallocating some other sites for specific reasons – for example, we have recommended deallocating a site that has significant complexities that mean it might never be delivered.

“The reasons we’re suggesting deallocating some sites are explained in our consultation, which we invite the public to read and give us their views.

“We have sufficient supply to meet our updated housing and employment requirements, so we haven’t needed to allocate any new sites to replace the sites we’re proposing to deallocate.”