An eight-week consultation will begin next month to create a masterplan for the future of Didcot.

Residents, schools, businesses, community groups and transport providers will all be asked their vision for the town as part of focus groups and through a drop-in centre.

South Oxfordshire District Council hopes the end result of 'Didcot 2030' will provide its trump card when the region's housing blueprint goes under the microscope.

Didcot has been earmarked for 3,000 new homes between 2016 and 2026 as part of Seera, the South East England Regional Assembly's South East Plan -- over and above the 4,500 new houses already in the pipeline, including Great Western Park.

District council cabinet member for planning John Cotton said: "We are on the front foot and we're taking the lead. Rather than wait for Seera to say 'you are having 5,000 houses', we will say 'this is how it will happen'." We are dealing with it proactively and we want all our negotiating chips lined up, and more importantly a plan supported by the people of Didcot."

The consultation process will include a public drop-in centre, located in the Orchard Centre, and invited focus groups on specific issues such as transport.

Mr Cotton said by the end of March the council hoped to have a draft plan that would be available for people to comment on.

The final version will form part of SODC's submission to the south east plan 'examination in public', set to take place later this year.

He added: "It will be available for people to comment on with a view to having something solid and supported going into the examination in public." Didcot Town Council leader and district councillor Margaret Davies has been a fierce critic of the Didcot 2030 project.

She said: "SODC is consulting on a decision that has not actually been made -- to put more housing a Didcot."

But she added the town council would contribute to the Didcot 2030 project.

"I would like Didcot people and those from the surrounding villages to engage in this but it is a wishlist and it has a long way to go before anything is achieved."