VILLAGES north of Didcot are raising a fighting fund and getting expert advice to try to block the proposed 1,800-home extension to the town’s Ladygrove estate.

Long Wittenham, Clifton Hampden and Appleford parish councils say they will fight the town’s growth to the north “all the way”, warning it would cause nightmare conditions on country roads and pose a flood risk to riverside villages.

Large parts of the site are listed as floodplain by the Environment Agency — although South Oxfordshire District Council insists these areas would not be built on.

The West Is Still Best lobby group has recruited transport and flooding experts to challenge the district council’s likely decision to allow building there, saying the houses would be better located close to the town’s Great Western Park development and East and West Hagbourne.

The three parish councils have agreed to share costs incurred in the fight, and this week launched a website and Facebook campaign, and put up signs and banners around the site. Long Wittenham Parish Council chairman, Paul Otter, said: “We will take this as far as the process goes, if necessary all the way to judicial review. So far we have not spoken to anyone in the villages who agrees with the Ladygrove extension.

“We recognise the need for housing, but this is the wrong side of town.”

Clifton Hampden Parish Council chairman, Chris Dupond, said: “The district council does not seem to recognise that a huge amount of traffic heads from Didcot to Oxford on these back roads, rather than using the A34. If just ten per cent of the new cars went through the village, it really would be diabolical.”

Audrey Sharp, a member of Appleford Parish Council, warned the development could create a “permanent traffic jam” through the village. She said: “We know Didcot is a growth area and there needs to be houses, but cannot understand why this totally unsuitable site has been chosen. It is going to make living in Appleford a nightmare, and the traffic would be devastating.”

Didcot is already set for huge expansion.

Work has already started on the 3,300-home Great Western Park, 650 homes are due to be built at Ladygrove East, and 300 each in the Orchard Centre’s extension and at Vauxhall Barracks.

Another 2,150 homes will be built next to Great Western Park in Harwell parish, but both Didcot Town Council and senior district councillors have indicated their preference for 1,800 homes to be built north of Ladygrove, rather than more development to the west.

Town council leader Bill Service said he appreciated the villagers’ worries, but the threat to the Hagbournes was even greater.

SODC’s leader Ann Ducker said: “One wants to work with people rather than being in a head-on collision, and we want to mitigate their feelings and be sensible.

“At this stage, no decision has been made, but their arguments are the same arguments they had previously and, as far as I know, officers say they have been overcome.”

Mrs Ducker said the council would work with Oxfordshire County Council to overcome traffic problems, and the floodplain would be left untouched.

She said: “The area in the floodplain would be left as open space. There would be no building on it. We are not that stupid.”