Sir - In September 2000, the city council adopted its Public Realm Strategy. It should have delivered the funds to restore Oxford's most magnificent streets.
Instead, the county council is now apparently the only funding body for works in the High, and unable to deliver planned improvements due to Government cuts in highways funding.
Where is the voice and commitment of the city? Has there been any approach to other funding sources?
No matter how good their intentions, highways departments will produce highways solutions. What else can they do? The traffic consultants' plans for the High are titled 'A420 Oxford High Street improvements'. A-road designation is surely not what the High needs today.
The city must re-engage more fully with its Public Realm Strategy. The High, and the Broad and St Giles too, deserve better than to be shaped by traffic engineers alone.
Funds should be sought from sources other than the county's highways budgets, to create world-class spaces for people in which the traffic function is subordinated to that of the street as a place. Then Oxford can address all the issues about how the High is used, including those surrounding the numbers of buses and coaches that traverse the street daily.
Until that can be done, any traffic engineering proposals should be put on hold.
Paul Cullen, Oxford
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