Sir – You report that “The transport strategy is due to be approved by the county council cabinet on Tuesday, before a public consultation next month” (Plan to close all park and rides inside the ring road, January 22).

Isn’t this just par for the course?

First approve the strategy, then conduct a cosmetic ‘consultation exercise’ so you can tick the box, then ignore what people (your employers, Messrs Hudspeth and Rose) actually think because you have already approved the strategy so it is ‘too late’ . . .

We are also told that not only did Oxfordshire County Council spring this new grand scheme on the public out of the blue, to be approved within five days, but they also failed to consult Oxford City Council which has its own plans to expand Pear Tree, scheduled to be closed down under the Oxfordshire County Council scheme. (The fact that Oxford’s plans are part of the Northern Gateway Development, yet another exhibition of politicians’ megalomania and a recipe for traffic snarl-ups on a monumental scale, is another story.)

All this, while Oxfordshire County Council  as the highways authority is obsessed with hamburger junctions but seems incapable of conducting basic road maintenance.

Just two examples:

(a) The middle of the busiest and most complex junction in Steeple Aston is a mosaic of manhole covers of all shapes and sizes plus small tarmac sections from all archaeological eras (two from the last year alone), forever being ‘repaired’ piecemeal but then dug up again in sections and never fixed properly for drivers’ safety despite a recent government grant;

(b) The sunken gullies on the southbound A4260, on the bend before the A4095 turn, hidden on approach and virtually impossible to avoid.

I have reported them, but they continue to assault the suspensions of cars passing that way. Priorities, Oxfordshire County Council?

John Kinory, Steeple Aston