A decision made last week – to allow a huge housing scheme to go ahead on a former US air force base – has wasted millions of pounds during a 17-year fight, a councillor has claimed.

George Reynolds, deputy leader of Cherwell District Council, said the proposal for the old air base at Upper Heyford should have been approved by the authority in 1994 – not in 2011.

The council had launched a costly battle with site owners, the North Oxfordshire Consortium, over the scale of the plans, yet ended up approving the plans after losing a 2009 independent planning inquiry.

The council’s planning committee last Thursday gave the final go-ahead to 1,075 homes (which include 311 existing houses from the original base), a primary school, shops, pub, offices and industrial space. Other features include the Battle Command Centre and a heritage centre. The council had previously argued for fewer homes.

Mr Reynolds said: “Millions of pounds, thousands of man hours, have been spent on it.

“I look at this and wonder, why? What has changed over the last 17 years for the millions of pounds of expense?”

Brandishing 1994 papers for the plan, he said: “I wish we had gone ahead and built it.

“To be brutally honest, it would have saved a lot of trouble and problems. I can see at the end of this a housing development and really very little will change.”

English Heritage said the site should be kept intact, as it was of historical value.

Paul Silver, executive director at the Dorchester Group, which bought the site in 2009, said: “This is an important moment in the life of the site.

“Now we can make more detailed plans that will improve the base and further develop our vision of a lively and diverse community.”

Patricia Kirby, who represents Heyford Park on Upper Heyford Parish Council, said: “It’s good news.

“Dorchester Group has promised to offer residents the chance to buy their homes and lots of residents are waiting to do that. All the planning delays had put all their futures on hold.”