Gravel extraction near Wallingford will harm the town’s bid to attract tourists to its Agatha Christie trail and steam railway, according to campaigners.

Last month, villagers in Cholsey launched a campaign to stop plans to extract almost five million tonnes of sand and gravel from a pit near their homes.

Oxfordshire County Council wants to allow fields between Cholsey and the Wallingford bypass to be used to extract the minerals for 25 years.

Judy Dewey, who runs the town’s museum, says the proposal would harm an Agatha Christie trail established this summer to guide tourists from Wallingford to the Cholsey churchyard where the writer is buried.

Mrs Dewey, who lives in Cholsey with her husband Stuart, said: “The gravel extraction will be a permanent scar on the landscape and will certainly blight Tourism in Wallingford.

“Tourism brings a great deal of money into the town and making the most of the Agatha Christie’s link is part of that – the trail is already proving popular.

“If gravel extraction does happen the entire route would be around the gravel workings, which would not be very scenic.”

She said the trail, a five-mile round trip starting in Wallingford, also directs visitors to Agatha Christie’s former home, Winterbrook House, where she lived from 1934 until her death in 1976.

Independent county councillor for Wallingford Lynda Atkins, a director of the Wallingford Partnership, said: “The Agatha Christie connection is a very useful way of bringing people into the town. There would be little point walking the route if the gravel extraction goes ahead because it would be more or less obliterated.”

The Cholsey and Wallingford Railway runs steam trains between the two locations, and spokesman Tim Mackie said gravel extraction would make the area “unattractive to visitors”.

Residents have formed the Communities against Gravel Extraction (Cage) action group to fight the bid.

The county council said the site could be used to excavate 4.9 million tonnes of sand and gravel over 25 years.

The council said the Cholsey site could take over from Sutton Courtenay, which is expected to run out of sand and gravel in about eight years’ time.

Cage member Bernard Stone, former mayor of Wallingford, said: “We have asked a minerals consultant to draw up an objective appraisal of the site.”

The consultation period for the gravel extractionplan affecting Cholsey finishes on October 31.