County councillors have been accused of turning their backs on Oxford's chronic housing shortage by refusing to consider an urban extension to the city as part of future housebuilding plans.

Yesterday campaigners wanting to see viable Green Belt sites such as land south of Grenoble Road and Shipton Quarry, near Kidlington, included in an imminent housebuilding consultation exercise were thwarted in their efforts.

Green Belt land was effectively saved earlier this year when it was excluded from the county's structure plan - a blueprint for housing growth between 2006 and 2016.

However, a consultation exercise that was due to start last week asking people where they think 8,000 new homes should be built was 'called-in' by a group of councillors concerned the options were too limited.

Yesterday every Conservative councillor bar one on the council's environment and economy scrutiny committee voted that the consultation was fair.

Labour's Didcot county councillor Terry Joslin and Tory Colin Lamont, whose Harwell ward is likely to be affected by future housebuilding, voted against the consultation.

Barton and Churchill's Liberal Democrat county councillor Roz Smith abstained.

Didcot town councillor Margaret Davies said: "This is an absolute farce. All the Tories have done is protect their vote in the north of the county.

"But this is not lost yet. Even though the council is hoodwinking the public with this consultation, we will attempt to inform people what is going on - that they are being stitched up - and we will take this to ministers at the highest level.

"There are 34,000 more jobs than workers in Oxford so it's obvious there should be development on scruffy old Green Belt land to the south of the city."

During a structure plan meeting in March 2004, county council leader Keith Mitchell said Grenoble Road was an "average piece of grass" with no intrinsic value that was far enough away from Blackbird Leys to have a life of its own.

The number of families registered with the city council as homeless is dropping year-on-year, but Oxford still has the highest rate outside inner city London - a problem costing £4.5m a year.

Homelessness does not just include those sleeping rough, but families and individuals waiting for a council house, of which there are currently 5,000.

Oxford East MP Andrew Smith added: "Quite apart from the argument that we desperately need more houses in central Oxfordshire, it will not strike people as a fair and balanced consultation if this option is excluded from consideration."

The final say on whether the Green Belt can be built on rests with Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott.