VILLAGERS have won the backing of planners in their efforts to mark the millennium by resiting a piece of village history.

Residents of Salford, near Chipping Norton, wanted to celebrate the millennium by moving the remains of an old wayside cross from beside the A44 to a site in the heart of the village, where a plaque would be set up to explain its history.

Now West Oxfordshire District councillors have agreed to give planning permission to the scheme put forward by the Salford 2000 committee.

The old wayside cross now sits behind a crash barrier on the A44 and committee member Frank Tovey said: "The present site of the stone is so virtually invisible that it seems that few people, even in the village, know of its existence, let alone its history." The cross is believed to date from Saxon times, and although its current site is not its original one, some bodies did object to the scheme. The Oxfordshire Architectural and Historical Society said it did not believe the stone base was a danger and could be seen by people where it is now.

They said it would be wrong to move it, but the council planners disagreed.