An appeal to South Oxfordshire District Council to get a move on and produce a definitive plan for housing development round Wallingford has been made by the town council.

The district council is in the process of putting a strategy together, but the public consultations and other procedures mean it may not be ready as the bible for local planning until 2012.

Town council member Bernard Stone said: “It is very worrying for us because of plans that already exist for the development of 400 homes just across the river in Crowmarsh. If those get the go-ahead and then another load of housing is built round Wallingford, it will be disastrous because two separate developments will not justify the infrastructure and school provision that the number of new houses would need.”

He said: “The sooner the definitive strategy is published the better for all of us.”

Mayor Alec Hayton said he was worried because none of the sites earmarked for housing around Wallingford were actually within the Wallingford parish. Although they were on the Wallingford side of the bypass, they were within the parish boundaries of Cholsey and Brightwell-cum-Sotwell.

Mr Hayton said: “We desperately need the boundary to be changed so that the land comes under Wallingford’s jurisdiction because all the people will be looking to Wallingford for schools, doctors, shops and leisure. We will need the council tax revenue from them to provide the extras that the new people will need.”

District council planning officer Gill Oliver said boundaries were not a planning issue.

She said the new plan would go through all the necessary statutory procedures and would be published as soon as possible