Moves are under way for a council to become involved in the monitoring of sex offenders.

West Oxfordshire district councillors are seeking the powers as partners, along with the police, social services and other agencies, in a new Community Safety Strategy for the area.

As the local housing authority, they believe they should know whether they are allocating homes to potentially dangerous applicants.

At present, the council has no power to demand the information from the police, which keeps a register of sex offenders living within the local community.

Barry Norton, council leader, said: "There is widespread concern about sex offenders, particularly paedophiles, and we have a right to stick our nose in on behalf of the public.

"We need to get information, for example, so that we can avoid making inappropriate housing allocations.

"There is a wider issue of whether the public should be allowed to know where offenders are in the community, but that is a sensitive issue."

The Community Safety Strategy has been set up under the 1998 Crime and Disorder Act requiring local partnerships to combat both crime and disorder.

In West Oxfordshire, the council is linking up with police, probation service, health authority and social services. They are joining forces to tackle a range of issues, including drug and alcohol abuse, anti-social behaviour, domestic violence and child abuse.

The council's cabinet has now added to that list the monitoring of sex offenders and "those people considered to pose a risk to the community."

The specific issue of paedophiles had been put on the agenda by Cllr Harry Watts, who represents Carterton.

He was outraged to discover that a sex offender with previous convictions, recently jailed for three years at Oxford Crown Court, was living in his community.