CHERWELL District Council’s executive voted unanimously – amid stormy scenes – to back its proposal for an eco-town on the north-west edge of Bicester.

The district council will now present the 5,000-home scheme, on farmland between Bucknell and Bicester, to the Government as an alternative to the controversial Weston Otmoor proposal, for a site near Weston-on-the-Green.

Angry villagers and farmers at yesterday's accused council leader Barry Wood of behaving undemocratically.

The council claims Weston Otmoor would damage Bicester and Kidlington.

Rosemary Henson, who owns Himley Farm, at the southern edge of the site, said: “I bitterly resent being thrown to the wolves as a decoy to divert attention from Weston Otmoor."

She added: “I do not intend lightly to give up. You don’t have enough money to buy my grandchildren’s land.”

Catherine Fulljames, the councillor for Caversfield and Bucknell, said: “This carbuncle has moved so fast, from November 4 as a theory to a concept by March 1.

“You’re now talking about taking it further and things being decided this evening by nine members of a 50-member council — is that being democratic?”

Debbie Pickford, executive member for organisational development and improvement, accused villagers of being ‘nimbys’.

Mr Wood said he believed the scheme would represent prosperity and investment in Bicester and would give the town the infrastructure it needed.

l See tomorrow’s Oxford Mail for reaction to the executive’s decision.