TWO council areas should work together to build environmentally friendly homes: that is the suggestion by one elected leader in a letter sent on Valentines Day.

South Oxfordshire District Council is currently prevented from discussing its emerging local plan, a document which councils use to plan where new homes and businesses can be built in their area.

On Friday last week, the council's Lib Dem leader Sue Cooper wrote to government housing secretary Robert Jenrick asking for a face to face meeting, promised in the House of Commons in January.

But the letter also suggested SODC might be able to create a combined local plan with neighbouring Vale of White Horse District Council in the future.

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The letter said: "We are ambitious and would like our Local Plan to be at the forefront of the latest bold and far-reaching thinking on the climate emergency.

"To do this in an economical fashion our preference as you know is to start a new plan, jointly with our neighbours, the Vale of White Horse District Council.

"This would almost halve their and our costs. However, they are not committed to working with us on a plan as they have already started and cannot wait for our uncertainty to be resolved.

"We would still want to start on data collection now, so that we are ready when your new bold environmental plans come into being."

Earlier this month, Oxfordshire County Council voted to take over the plan if it is invited to by the government.

Layla Moran, the MP for Oxford West and Abingdon described the result of the vote as a 'dark day for democracy.'

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Ms Moran had been trying to act as a negotiator between SODC and the government, attempting to bring them together for a meeting to resolve the local plan debate without taking power away from the council.

Last week, both SODC and Vale of White Horse District Council passed their budgets for the 2020/21 financial year.

In Vale's budget, the council has set aside money to prepare a new local plan, as the Lib Dem majority on the council do not think the current plan does enough to be environmentally friendly.