Controversial proposals to build 3,000 homes on Green Belt land south of Oxford have been thrown a lifeline by a Government report.
The scheme was in jeopardy after a policy U-turn by county councillors on March 16, but the Barker Report, published a day later, recommends big increases in housing development in areas like Oxfordshire.
The county council's executive voted to drop the proposed new homes from the draft county Structure Plan after a flood of protests. The executive's decision to abandon the centrepiece of its affordable housing strategy was seen as a major victory for campaigners, who claimed a housing development south of Grenoble Road would lead to the destruction of Oxford's Green Belt.
But the findings of the Treasury-sponsored Barker Report were seized on by Magdalen College, which owns the land. College officials had told councillors the site could accommodate up to 3,000 homes, with all necessary supporting facilities.
Magdalen's senior bursar Charles Young said: "This is a much wider issue than the Green Belt versus housing. There are issues to do with the economic development of Oxford, the continued sustenance of technology clusters and the availability of housing for all types of workers." He said the college's plan perfectly matched the kind of areas identified in the Barker Plan where more land should be released for housing.
The development would include schools, health centres and shops, with access to the site from Reading Road. The initial plan is for 1,000 homes. But councillors decided to remove the scheme from the structure plan and redistribute the housing quota around the county. That would mean 400 extra houses in the Vale of White Horse, 300 in Witney, 200 in Oxford and another 100 in Bicester.
The plan for new homes near Grenoble Road generated 1,900 objections - about 75 per cent of all the objections received about the Structure Plan. The issue will go to the full council next month and a full examination in public later in the year. The leader of the county council, Keith Mitchell, described the implications of the Barker report for Oxfordshire as horrendous, requiring the present county target of building 36,500 houses over a 15-year period to leap to 91,000.
He said: "It appears that these matters are not going to be decided by elected bodies, but by a regional housing executive -- a quango appointed by John Prescott."
Chancellor Gordon Brown asked Bank of England economist Kate Barker last year to examine problems with Britain's housing supply. Her report recommends building 140,000 new homes a year.
Andrew Smith, MP for Oxford East and Work and Pensions Secretary, said: "This Treasury report clearly indicates that more must be done to help people on low incomes get their foot on the property ladder."