Plans for a development of 900 houses, a primary school and shops on land just outside Bicester have been submitted to Cherwell District Council.

The proposals look set to be opposed by residents in Caversfield, which would almost double in size if the plans get the go-ahead.

The application for the urban extension' on a 35-hectare site at Dymocks Farm, in Buckingham Road, was made by Lowstrand Properties.

Plans for the development come less than three years after residents successfully battled plans for large-scale housing on Bicester airfield, which lies between Caversfield and Bicester.

Odette Phipps, the chairman of Caversfield Parish Council, said: "You would have rat-running. People going to Oxford would not use the bypass, they would go down the Fringford Road through Chesterton.

"And until there are more facilities in Bicester, it's our opinion there shouldn't be any more development."

Caversfield has a population of about 3,000 people, but no pub, no shop and no village hall.

Mrs Phipps said: "There would be absolutely nothing for the children to do. It would just be a disaster area. Where are they going to go to secondary school?

"It's not a case of nimbyism, people have got to live in places, but there's got to be some common sense. The roads are gridlocked now, and 900 houses means 1,800 cars. It's daft."

The village's Cherwell district councillor, Catherine Fulljames, said councillors had rejected the site for housing in the Local Plan because of its location.

She said: "That's bigger than most villages. It's not actually attached to Caversfield there are fields in between."

Lowstrand Properties has applied for a screening opinion' of the development a method for prospective developers to see whether they would need to carry out an environmental impact assessment.

Donald Chambers, a spokesman for the developer's agents Colin Buchanan, said the company had been asked for an environmental study and hoped to submit one in the next six months.

He said: "It's basically a way of trying to minimise any problems with large developments."

District council planning officer Duncan Chadwick said that once the environmental assessment was submitted, the application would be considered.

Lowstrand submitted a planning application for the site in 1998, then withdrew it.