VILLAGERS have said they are confident they can win a war against two housing developers who refuse to take 'no' for an answer.

Residents of Sutton Courtenay have been battling Redrow Homes and London Regeneration for more than two years over plans for a total of 554 homes.

Vale of White Horse District Council has refused permission for both schemes, but both firms have appealed against those decisions and submitted fresh applications.

London Regeneration has this month submitted a new application for 310 homes in Harwell Road while Redrow has an outstanding appeal and an undecided application over a 200-home plan for Hobbyhorse Lane, and villagers say they feel they are being beaten into submission.

Resident Robin Draper said: "We are running around trying to get our case together against these two applications.

"Part of the problem of this whole business is the way developers wear communities down.

"What appals me is when a community actually registers very serious concerns about a site and they are dismissed."

Redrow submitted its first application for land next to a landfill site in Hobbyhorse Lane in October 2015.

Despite the fact that Vale officers had earmarked the site for up to 220 homes in the local plan for development, the Vale's planning committee rejected the application in March 2017, saying the site's location next to a waste facility posed 'disgraceful' contamination risks.

Oxfordshire County Council has also said the estate would put an unacceptable strain on village roads.

Vale officers, refusing to accept the committee's decision, enforced a 'cooling-off' period, but when nothing happened Redrow appealed against the 'non-determination' of its application and submitted a new application for 200 homes.

Both the appeal and the new application are still outstanding.

London Regeneration, meanwhile, first applied to build 354 homes on Harwell Road – a site not in the local plan – in March 2016.

The planning committee threw that scheme out, too.

The company initially launched an appeal against the decision, then withdrew it in January this year and instead submitted a new plan for 310 homes with a medical centre and a shop.

In this application, London Regeneration has told the council that it has 'an opportunity to optimise and reinforce the village infrastructure' and 'protect it from later poor and uncontrolled development'.

The company said its 310-home estate 'could provide a significant contribution to the overall wellbeing and sustainability of the whole of the village, offering not only valuable and much-needed housing, but significant added value to the village'.

Regarding local opinions, the firm said: "The development of the design has been informed by discussions with and in consultation with the local community."

It added it had received 'strong support for the proposed uses and the specific and unique benefits of the redevelopment'.

Despite that optimism, Anne Morgan-Smith of Sutton Courtenay Action said she was confident the village could defeat both the housing plans.

Speaking about London Regeneration's scheme she said: "I have no idea why they think there is an opportunity for them,

"It has been accepted that, in regards to traffic, any development at all would cause harm, and I can't see any reason for them to be optimistic or hopeful.

"Two years ago we were thinking they were going to get it, but now I think we've never been in a more powerful position."