Banbury MP Tony Baldry wants more to be done to help families in north Oxfordshire find homes.

Speaking in the House of Commons, Mr Baldry said Banbury and Bicester were two of the fastest-growing towns in the country.

But he feared very little new social housing would be built as part of a "huge" new housing development at Bankside and Bodicote.

The Tory MP said: "Working families on low incomes with children are finding it extremely difficult to gain access to secure housing. We are not seeing new social housing being introduced as part of the planning process."

Working families on low incomes were finding themselves in a Catch 22 situation, Mr Baldry said.

"They are told by the housing authorities that if they go on to the housing waiting list they will probably have to remain on it for a very long time. If they move into the private rented sector, they are told that they are adequately housed, so they drop off the social housing list.

"Those of us who are fortunate enough to own our own homes know that one benefit of home ownership of the security of tenure that freehold gives is that we can do things in our own gardens and houses that those in private rented-sector accommodation cannot do. What concerns me is where the new social housing is to come from."

Mr Baldry said he wanted to see more shared equity schemes, which allowed people to buy a stake in a home and increase it when they could afford to.

James Macnamara, Cher- well District Council's member for housing, said Cherwell's latest housing needs survey showed 400 more homes were needed for social housing each year than were currently being found.

Mr Macnamara said Cherwell had promised to build 600 new affordable homes during the next five years but added that would still not be enough.

He said: "We need to increase supply as much as we possibly can, but clearly there are limits too we can't concrete over the whole of Cherwell. There is always going to be, in the South of England, greater need than we can possibly build."

Cherwell requires developers building 25 houses or more allocate 30 per cent for social housing.