Witney should not be saddled with excessive housebuilding to protect Oxford's green belt, say council officers.

Witney has been painted as a town under increasing pressure in a report for a meeting of West Oxfordshire District Council's cabinet today. Councillors will be debating policies which will guide development in the area up to 2016.

The town has poor transport links with Oxford, still awaits internal relief roads, has two secondary schools stretched to capacity and its market town character is being eroded, a report warns.

The author, senior planner Tina Rowland, said in her report: "Arguably, land on the fringes of Witney is of higher quality for its landscape and ecology than some of the land in the Oxford green belt.

"Much of the housing need is, after all, in Oxford and traffic has already increased significantly because of people living outside the city seeking access.

"Some areas are clearly more than important than others. Green belt protection needs to be more selective.

"We need to know how overriding these constraints are in central Oxfordshire before smaller towns are considered for yet more substantial growth."

A survey carried out on one of Witney's newest estates, Deer Park, showed that more residents commute out of the town than work in it. More than a third worked in the Oxford area, with less than a third working in Witney.

An updated version of the county's Structure Plan is now out to consultation. West Oxfordshire is expected to take up to 7,000 of 35,000 new homes up to 2011. In the five years after that Oxfordshire must find space for another 12,650 homes.