Residents have hit out at comments on a website that has branded Wantage a 'chav town'.

On www.chavtowns.co.uk a comment reads: "Wantage should be a perfect place to live, a small market town sat at the foot of the Berkshire Downs in rural Oxfordshire. Alas, it's not."

It continues: "The lovely chavs who liven up the centre of town every night of the week by screeching around in their neon and spoiler bedecked max'd up cars, crappy urban 'music' thumping over the noise of an exhaust that sounds like it's bust.

"They never actually drive anywhere, these chavs, just go around and around the market place, occasionally stopping in the middle for half an hour before commencing on their never-ending circuit once more.

"Wantage appears to have a thriving chav population; walk into one of the pubs of a Saturday night and with one quick sweep across the room you'll manage to tick off a good number of contenders on any chav spotting list."

It adds: "They'll have not a single GCSE to their name but plenty of Asbos."

Wantage MP Ed Vaizey condemned the website for blackening the town's name.

He said: "This is an outrageous slur on Wantage, which is a beautiful market town. I recognise we have some problems with late-night drinking, which is why I opposed the late night licences.

"I don't see any evidence of chavness and the people of Wantage that I know are far from being chavs."

Sarah McNaught, of the Wantage Information Point, said: "Wantage has a rich and thriving culture. It has beautiful historic buildings, a traditional market place and is surrounded by lovely countryside.

"We don't have graffiti and broken windows everywhere. I've lived here a year, and I feel less threatened than I do living in a city, although I don't hang around in the centre of town when the pubs are chucking out.

"We do get a bit of trouble but I don't think it's any worse for than any other town. Calling it a chav town is negative and unfair."