Sir – In a democracy, you expect to be able to engage in a dialogue with your local council. But a packed public meeting in Wolvercote was told that the council’s principal planner, Rachel Williams, had not even responded to an invitation to attend to answer local queries.

Further, local councillor Mike Gotch told the meeting that the Northern Gateway development was “going to happen anyway” whatever the people at the meeting thought, because the Government wanted it.

Among the many unanswered questions are the following: 1: Where are the “capacity improvements” on the A40 and A34 roads, regarded as essential by the core strategy before the development could be viable? There is nothing currently on offer.

2: How can the council justify their recent announcement that they are more than doubling the size of the development — without consulting the public? And how can they think it is all right to proceed with a much bigger development without updating their air pollution and hydrology reports — as well as taking account of the more frequent and faster trains that will make any new homes way over the acceptable limit for vibration levels? Who would even want to live in a vibrating house in a pollution hotspot?

3: How can Oxford’s existing housing crisis be solved by bringing 6,000-9,000 new employees (many of them, international academics) to the city? Where will they live?

Surely a responsible council doesn’t recklessly expand the number of jobs without providing homes to go with them?

In short, we need a council that is genuinely interested in responding to people’s concerns and arriving at good solutions together — not one that is pushing some economic agenda from on high, regardless of its sustainability and benefit for Oxford as a historic and special city.

Dr Sue Gerhardt, Wolvercote