The Princess Royal got behind the controls of digger to start work on the second phase of an affordable housing project in Kingham.

The Princess, dressed in a dusky pink jacket and cream pleated skirt, arrived in the village in a helicopter to be greeted by the Lord Lieutenant of Oxfordshire, Hugo Brunner and other guests.

Helped by digger driver Paul Hollis, he Princess lifted the first bucket of soil to start phase two of a low-cost housing scheme in Meadow Way, which will provide seven homes for rent or shared ownership.

She was then presented with a posy of seasonal flowers by six-year-old Codee Harding, who lives with her mother Kerry at Meadow View, before visiting the home of Kerry's cousin Lisa Harding, her partner Simon Barrett and their daughter Lauren, aged four. The family had been forced to move out of the village because of the lack of affordable housing.

Lisa said: "People like me, my friends and family, who have all grown up in the village, are the heart and soul and future of villages. Villages die if there are no young people to keep them alive."