VILLAGERS are celebrating after winning a battle to get a new 1,200-home 'garden village' built in their parish.

The parish councils of Wootton and St Helen Without (SHW) will get millions of extra pounds for new roads, cycleways and other infrastructure of their choosing after they defeated a bid by Abingdon Town Council to get Dalton Barracks classified as part of its parish.

The story all centres around the official town boundary.

The two parish councils are developing a joint neighbourhood plan for where new homes should be built and which green spaces should be protected.

As part of that, they needed to outline a neighbourhood plan area.

But during the process, Abingdon Town Council made an official request for large parts of the parishes to be moved into its boundary.

Crucially, this included Dalton Barracks, where Vale of White Horse District Council wants to build a new 'garden village' after the Army moves out in 2029.

If the barracks had been adopted by Abingdon, the town council would have been the automatic recipient of millions of pounds worth of so-called Community Infrastructure Levy (CIL): housing developer cash for local infrastructure such as schools, leisure facilities and improving roads.

But now, Vale of White Horse District Council has ruled that the barracks is not a part of Abingdon but a part of SHW.

That means the parish will automatically get at least 15 per cent of the total CIL.

What's more, if Wootton and SHW finish their joint neighbourhood plan that chunk will increase to 25 per cent.

Neighbourhood plan steering group member Richard Bahu said: "We are delighted.

"If we hadn't got Dalton Barracks in the neighbourhood plan area it would have been a huge chunk of land in our parish that we would have no influence over and we wouldn't have been able to connect that properly to the other villages.

"We are delighted that we can now have this influence and we're really looking forward to acting as that bridge between all the stakeholders moving forward."

Vale cabinet member for planning Roger Cox said he had been impressed with the 'positive and innovative approach' from both parish councils.

He said: "Redevelopment at Dalton Barracks offers the Vale a unique opportunity to provide housing on brownfield land.

"Having significant input from the local communities will make sure that it's done properly, sustainably and in line with what residents want."

Abingdon town councillor Mike Badcock said he was disappointed that the areas had not been included in Abingdon.

He said: "We are disappointed but obviously due process has been gone through.

"I just hope this new neighbourhood plan will properly look after the people in the area."

The parishes' victory coincides with Vale of White Horse District Council granting approval last week for 950 homes in North Abingdon.

The day before, the Government announced it was setting aside £9m towards creating an £18m 'diamond interchange' with southbound sliproads at the nearby Lodge Hill interchange on the A34, but the rest of the money needed for the project will come from CIL from housing estates such as North Abingdon.

Wootton and SHW are now working on a two-parishes questionnaire to start developing the Neighbourhood Plan and hoped to publish their first draft in the spring.