A KEY plank of a housing plan which could result in 3,000 homes being built next to an airfield should still go ahead, senior councillors have said.

Worries about the deliverability of homes at Chalgrove Airfield and infrastructure around it led South Oxfordshire District Council’s cabinet to reconsider whether it should be ditched and replaced with an alternative.

But at a meeting yesterday the cabinet decided that the project should still form part of its crucial Local Plan, which outlines major development in the area and needs to be signed off by a planning inspector before it is allowed.

John Cotton, the council’s leader, said he was in favour of the council ‘cracking on with [the Local Plan]’ and seeing whether it is acceptable.

But he conceded the council has ‘no certainty’ on whether it will be approved but that continuing with the current proposal is the 'most sensible' option.

Mr Cotton said using the Chalgrove Airfield site would still be preferable to building on other controversial sites currently not including in its Local Plan, including Grenoble Road, south of Oxford.

Hundreds of residents have said they are opposed to building. The international ejector seat company, Martin-Baker, is based there.

It has said it has no intention on leaving it or giving up any land, which it has said is critical to its global business strategy.

But Government housing delivery agency Homes England, which wants to build on the site, has warned Martin-Baker that it could use compulsory purchase powers to build where it wants – but that doing so would be a last resort.

As part of the £215m Oxfordshire Housing and Growth Deal, the council must provide a Local Plan by the end of March 2019.

The council’s head of planning, Adrian Duffield, said entirely removing Chalgrove Airfield and finding another would have taken too long to meet that date.

The final decision on whether Chalgrove Airfield is included in the Local Plan rests with the council.

It will hold a meeting next Tuesday on whether the cabinet’s recommendation is acceptable at the Fountain Conference Centre in Crowmarsh Gifford.