Sir - I read your editorial about the redevelopment of the Westgate Centre in Oxford with some surprise.

You say the attendance figure at the protest meeting of only 70 people does not count as "serious and substantial opposition". I believe that MPs multiply by ten the number of letters they receive on any subject to take into account those concerned but who never find time to write.

Similarly, I suspect there are many like myself who are seriously concerned about the redevelopment of the Westgate who did not manage to get to that meeting.

The plans have indeed been "on the cards for years" and that is exactly what has allowed the developers to change them such that only the assiduous have followed the process through and are now protesting.

The redesign put forward in 2006, which fundamentally changed the design, including the decision to chop down all the mature trees, never went on public display. Is this "democracy"?

It is worth noting that increased flooding risk has appeared on the agenda during this time and a need to consider more environmentally sound ways of building and living.

What is so wonderful about the "arrival" of John Lewis and what on earth is a "wonderful shopping experience"? The notion that local people will travel fewer miles in search of it hides the accompanying notion that presumably other people, local to Reading, or wherever, will travel to Oxford.

And attempts by the Westgate Partnership to pretend that the development will not increase car journeys or congestion are disingenuous to say the least. Not many people will be travelling to a "wonderful shopping experience" by bike - more's the pity.

I am glad a legal challenge is being mounted on behalf of the residents of Abbey Place. The bluff excuse that they 'are being moved and housed in similar accommodation in Albion Place reeks of 18th-century landowners moving entire villages because they got in the way of some grand landscaping scheme.

The county and city councillors who have allowed this to take place would be well advised to note the forthcoming elections - an old-fashioned kind of democracy.

Ann Furtado Oxford