Sir – Planning in Oxfordshire is in a mess. There are two fundamental issues:

 

1. Can, and should, Oxfordshire take the vast amount of new housing which the Government, SHMA and the LEP are undemocratically trying to impose on us?

 

2. If we assume and accept that large-scale further growth is inevitable, how best can that be managed?

 

The first, to the shame of our elected district and City councils, has hardly been addressed.

 

The second is leading to near civil war between councils, each sovereign in its planning powers.

 

Oxford’s quest for growth through a garden city which would bulldoze through Oxford’s Green Belt and have a major impact on surrounding towns and villages is being fiercely resisted by surrounding district councils.

 

Where is the leadership and where are the policies to sort out this sorry mess? We badly need a much more integrated planning structure, but not one which will allow the City to override the very real concerns of neighbouring areas.

 

Perhaps as a start we might begin exploring how the concept of an Oxfordshire garden city, as in Nicholas Falk’s prize- winning proposals, could benefit not just Oxford itself but also wider carbon reduction policies and the rest of us living elsewhere.

 

This could be through reduced pressure to build, less traffic congestion, pollution and infrastructure strain elsewhere in the county, higher county-wide design and building standards and — admittedly  problematic — a possible re-drawing of the Oxford Green Belt to create a larger, more community friendly, at least equally attractive and ecologically valuable protected area.

 

Others will have different ideas. Fine, but let’s at least begin some sensible public discussion. The Oxford Civic Society’s proposed Oxford(shire) Futures Forum might be an excellent place to start.

 

John Gordon, Chair, South Oxfordshire Sustainability (SOS) Group, Wallingford