A former county councillor has accused Oxfordshire County Council of being undemocratic after she was refused permission to give her views on the Structure Plan.

Ex-councillor Janet Todd claimed that the public would be denied the chance to address the executive board until it was too late for them to make a difference.

The plan, which will determine development in the county until 2016, is being reviewed.

But council leaders ruled it would be a bureaucratic nightmare to allow everyone to have their say before the document was officially placed on deposit.

The suggestion that thousands of new homes could be built near Kidlington, unless there was sufficient expansion in towns such as Bicester and Didcot, has already caused controversy.

Mrs Todd, of Foxton Close, north Oxford, said she was furious that she had not been allowed to speak to the executive board on Tuesday, after giving the council the necessary notice, of a working day. Now in her eighties, Mrs Todd -- who hoped to air her concerns for the green belt -- was a county councillor between 1977 and 1997, and was also Lord Mayor of Oxford in 1983.

She said: "I think this is quite undemocratic.

"The council leaders should have made it clear that no views would be allowed, and there was nothing on the papers to say that would be the case.

"It's quite clear that the council does not want the public to have their say until it's too late to make any real changes."

The executive board agreed to approve the draft review for a six-week public consultation, starting in September.

Earlier, council leaders had taken the decision not to allow anyone to speak on the issue at the meeting, asking them to wait until the document was completed in September.

John Leverton, the council's head of committee services, said other people had also been refused permission to speak.

He added: "The same decision will apply to Tuesday's, June 17's, county council meeting."

Keith Mitchell, leader of the council, added: "If we had let people address us, we would have had every developer before us and every parish council trying to protect their village."