The debate over where 3,200 homes should be built at Didcot hotted up as rival campaigners handed in petitions supporting expansion either to the north east or to the west of the town.

They queued to lobby MP Robert Jackson at his Wallingford surgery he arranged to meet the groups an hour apart.

Mr Jackson admitted it was the most divisive issue in the constituency since he became the local MP in 1983.

The Campaign for a Sustainable Didcot and Keep Harwell Rural groups want Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott to 'call in' the Oxfordshire Structure Plan after the county council environmental committee last month reaffirmed an earlier decision to site the new homes along the western edge of Didcot.

Their petition contained 3,326 signatures mostly people living west and south of Didcot. Campaign spokesman Dr Jacalyn Mercer said they believed county councillors were "unreasonable and wrong" to reject the recommendation by an independent panel that development should be to the north-east.

Earlier Dr John Rodda, chairman of the 13 Parishes Group, handed over 1,874 signatures collected by campaigners in villages and towns north east of Didcot, including Long Wittenham and Appleford, as well further afield such as Wallingford, whose mayor, Dennis Strange, was among the representatives.

The group supports the county council's western decision. Dr Rodda said that along with villages in Michael Heseltine's neighbouring Henley constituency north of the Thames, they feared extra traffic would be generated if expansion were to be north east of Didcot.

The 13 Parishes Group also plans to hand over part of its petition with a further 733 signatures to Mr Heseltine to pass on to Mr Prescott.

Mr Jackson said he thought it was likely the Structure Plan would be called in for the Deputy Prime Minister to make the decision himself.

Mr Jackson added: "My role as MP has been to be consistently neutral in this matter.

"Obviously, I have to represent the views of my constituents and I am therefore not taking sides in this dispute."