FEARS of flooding in Kidlington have surfaced over plans for development further up the Cherwell valley.

Retired civil engineer Carl Smith says his warnings over new housing schemes were being ignored and nothing was being done to improve defences to protect the village from floods.

Mr Smith, 70, a parish clerk for neighbouring Gosford and Water Eaton Parish Council, warned that thousands of new homes planned for Banbury, Upper Heyford and Kidlington, plus the proposed new Oxford-Bicester train line, could cause greater run-off into the Cherwell, leading to flooding.

He said that despite a meeting with the Environment Agency a year ago, he still had not been told what effect the 2,000 new homes in Banbury and 1,000 on the Upper Heyford airbase site would have further down the valley, and whether existing flood defences could cope with it.

Mr Smith, of Cromwell Way, Kidlington, said: “After the floods in 1998, and after a lot of campaigning, the Environment Agency put up flood defences, breach walls and bunds.

“But in summer 2007, when much of Oxfordshire flooded, it came within a few inches of happening again.

“With all the building going on in Banbury and other places, the railway plan, modern farming practices and climate change, the flood risk must have increased again.”

The River Cherwell runs yards from homes in Mill End, Watermead, Cherwell Avenue and Queens Avenue in the east of the village, before passing under Gosford Bridge on Bicester Road.

Mr Smith added: “We need to put some sort of water storage facility upstream of Kidlington, and raise the defences. They are built for a 100-year-flood, but when conditions were not quite as bad as that in 2007, it was far too close for comfort.

“The water came within a brick’s height of coming over the defences.”

The Environment Agency’s flood risk manager Barry Russell said: “At the moment we do not think the defences in Kidlington need to be raised. The floodplain in this area is very wide, so a large increase in the size of the flood may only result in a small increase in the level of water, as the volume of water is spread over such a large area.

“As future developments have to show that they will not increase flood risk downstream, we do not think that flood storage upstream of Kidlington is necessary at this stage.”

The Environment Agency is also working with Chiltern Railways over its plans for the new railway line, she added.