South Oxfordshire District Council has been urged to produce a definitive plan for housing development round Wallingford.

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.

Wallingford 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. The sooner the definitive strategy is published the better for all of us.”

Mayor Alec Hayton was worried because none of the sites earmarked for housing around Wallingford are in the town.

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

She said the new plan would be published as soon as possible.