A PLAN to sell the homes of lock-keepers has been all but abandoned after a powerful local campaign against the move.

The Environment Agency was taken aback by the local support after The Oxford Times revealed details of a money-raising scheme to sell off or lease out ten out of 22 lock-keepers’ properties in the upper Thames region.

Local lock-keepers were jubilant today as the EA announced that resident lock-keepers would remain in place at each of its 45 lock sites on the Thames.

The agency says it will sell just five lock-keeper homes, none of them on the river. The properties to be sold include a house in Laburnam Road, Botley, which is occupied by a relief lock-keeper.

Oxfordshire lock-keepers said the news had come as a huge relief, after months of anxiety about their futures.

One Oxfordshire lock-keeper said: “A lot of lock-keepers have been living under a cloud, fearing that they would lose their homes.

“This news represents a huge climbdown by the EA.”

The lock houses in Oxfordshire that had been on the at-risk list were Godstow, Culham, Walling-ford, Sandford-on-Thames, Little Wittenham, Buscot, Shifford and St Johns, near Lechlade, and Garth House at Rushey, near Faringdon.

Hugh Davidson, the EA’s regional director, said: “We have listened carefully to staff, MPs, river users and those who live in the flood plain, who all raised objections to our original proposals announced earlier this year.

“We have carried out a full review into this, and issues such as flood risk and our response to incidents outside normal working hours have been key to our considerations.”

Mr Davidson said the proposal would now be discussed with staff and unions.

Flood-affected residents had warned that forcing lock-keepers from their homes could have calamitous consequences at times of flooding.

Tory leader and Witney MP David Cameron was among the MPs to throw his wieght behind the campaign to save the lock-keepers’ homes. Oxfordshire County Council had criticised the plan as “a cavalier approach to safety”.

The EA said that it had always guaranteed that no lock or weir staff would have been made homeless or redundant if the plan had gone ahead. A spokesman added: “This commitment remains. We intend to move staff in the five houses which are off site, and which are due to be sold, into houses at or adjacent to a lock site in due course.”