On the face of it, the people of Oxfordshire have six weeks to make a decision that will determine the shape of the county for decades to come. For, after months of dispute about the future of the Green Belt, the size of our market towns and whether or not the city of Oxford should be expanded, we are all to have our say.
Now is the time for the defenders of the green fields around Oxford to show their strength in numbers. Similarly, it is a moment for developers and major landowners to unveil their plans for new settlements to help ease the county's chronic housing shortages.
The South East England Regional Assembly (Seera) has decided that Oxfordshire should absorb 2,360 new homes a year over the next 20 years. Now we have all been left with the tricky bit - deciding where they should go.
A county-wide consultation starts on September 16 running through to October 28. Happily, unless you happen to live in Didcot, Bicester or Grove, Oxfordshire County Council has given us a few pointers to make your choice a little easier.
To begin with, it will be made clear to everyone thinking of taking part in the consultation that in order to meet housing targets of 10,000 that must go up on green field sites - that's 8,000 in central Oxfordshire and 2,000 in the rest of the county (Thame, Banbury, Carterton, and Banbury areas).
County Hall is also setting out two clear options:
Essentially, it reflects the long-established strategy of focusing new homes in the towns around Oxford, a policy which has helped preserve the city's Green Belt, but which has led to roads clogged with extra commuters.
Not much of a choice, you might say. Some will suspect that the county council's alternatives ignore the big planning question facing Oxford in 2005: whether Oxford be allowed to expand on Green Belt to create homes close to the city, where the work is and where people want to live.
Magdalen College and Thames Water are certainly disappointed that the choices did not include their proposal to build 3,500 homes on 370 acres near Grenoble Road. They are now writing to councillors calling for its late inclusion as Option Three, in advance of next week's full council meeting. The Senior Bursar of Magdalen College, Charles Young, said: "The draft consultation paper does not include the 'close to Oxford' alternative."
The consultation does, however, allow people to suggest alternatives. The leader of the county council, Keith Mitchell, has also made clear that opinion on the key issue of expanding Oxford would be taken into account. He said: "If people feel strongly, they can write in. If enough feel strongly, we would have to think again."
But the consultation exercise should not be viewed as a referendum to settle the issue of the future of Oxford's Green Belt. For it is merely the latest stage in a long, fiendishly complicated process, one in which the council is merely a bit player, with the real pacesetter that unloved, unelected and much derided body, the regional assembly.
For two years, the assembly has been busily working on its South East Plan, which must be submitted to the Deputy Prime Minister, John Prescott, in March. There have been long and passionate debates on the number of homes, with most of the key meetings chaired by Mr Mitchell, who also chairs Seera's planning committee. (He has since become chairman of the whole regional assembly).
It all led to an earlier, and far more costly, consultation exercise which saw residents across the region being asked about the numbers of homes that should be built. Only one per cent of people bothered to respond and Seera settled on 28,900 homes across the south east over 20 years.
With 26,200 homes already planned in Oxfordshire up to 2016, the county faces building 11,000 on previously developed land and 10,000 on greenfield sites. Nevertheless, the 2,360 homes a year total over 20 years actually represents a small fall in the figure of 2,430 proposed for Oxfordshire in the County's Structure Plan.
So after all the agonising, threats, consulting and scaremongering, we are pretty much where we were before the process started, a fact that will not go unnoticed in the Deputy Prime Minister's Office.
But as the South East Plan process grinds on, with every county in the region having to get down to the unhappy task of identifying how they will absorb their allotted share, one big fear persists: could the whole prolonged, time-consuming and expensive exercise not be worth the mountains of paper the South East Plan is written on?
Might not the Deputy Prime Minister choose to ignore it. There have certainly been stern warnings about the need for more affordable homes in the South East from Mr Prescott. But Mr Prescott has already served notice that he is ready to change the rules at this late stage - by overhauling the planning system yet again.
The Deputy Prime Minister has been consulting councils about a shake-up of the planning system to make local authorities "more flexible and responsive" to housing needs. In order to ensure more land is released for homes, the proposal from his office is to designate regions based on housing demand, with criteria of high growth, managed and low-growth areas. He has also proposed that any building in the Green Belt with floor space of more than 1,000 square metres should be automatically referred to him. The Government is also urging a more flexible approach to Green Belts, allowing land to be taken out for development, as long as they replace it somewhere else to keep the overall acreage the same.
The alarm bells were ringing loudly at Tuesday's meeting of the county council's cabinet committee. Mr Mitchell said: "This is deadly serious, The proposal is essential to get rid of a plan-led system and replace it with something that is market-driven."
Mr Mitchell feared that high-priced areas in Oxfordshire could well end up categorised as high-growth areas. He said: "It feels like he is planning a free-for-all in the high-growth areas. It seems to be saying that where there is high demand, to hell with the environment implications."
Chris Cousins, head of the county's sustainable development, said the Government appeared to be equivocal on the key issue on whether the housing market should be the crucial factor in deciding on planning applications.
It all suggests that the new housing totals painstakingly agreed under Mr Mitchell's stewardship of the regional assembly may, in fact, be far from fixed.
Major landowners such as Magdalen and Brasenose colleges, who want to see the Green Belt boundary redrawn, have good reason to believe the real battle has not yet even started.
But Mr Mitchell warned: "John Prescott might be tempted to increase the housing numbers. But I think he needs to be very careful." He added that, by ignoring the South East Plan, Mr Prescott would inflict irretrievable damage to the credibility of Seera, threatening the existence of the regional tier of government in the South East.
Mr Mitchell said: "If he imposed his view it might be the end of the regional assembly. Many members would feel there would be no point in staying in it."
But where it leaves the likes of Baldon Parish Council among those battling to stop the settlement off Grenoble Road or Sunningwell Parishioners Against Damage group opposing an eco-village scheme near their village, is far from clear.
If it were not already confusing enough, the county council cabinet on Tuesday reviewed the Oxfordshire Structure Plan, the planning blueprint for the conty, increasingly irrelevant but still sailing on despite all the new Labour reforms.
Parish councils, interests groups and businesses will be sent questionnaires in the latest consultation with leaflets to be placed in libraries and council buildings.
John Flood, of Didcot Town Council, will no doubt be urging that with 3,500 homes going through the planning process at Didcot, the town needs time to draw breath. "To contemplate more homes without widening the A34 or building a new road is ridiculous," he said earlier. Bicester county councillor Charles Shouler will continue to argue that Bicester town centre simply cannot be made much bigger.
With so much at stake, divisions within the county can be expected to widen over the next six weeks as questiamaires go out.
The results from the homes and parish halls of Oxfordshire will then be faithfully passed from County Hall to the regional assembly.
And after that? Well when it comes to house building and Mr Prescott, it is not wise to plan too far ahead.
reg.little@nqo.com