Continuing worry

With regard to the Heyford air base site, I am off-message because county council policy is to oppose major development here, but I have always held the personal view that this was a perfect site for a town of some 5,000 homes. With two rail lines and proximity to the M40, my personal view is that this would have made an excellent small new town.

However, I fear that argument has been lost. It is to be mothballed as a monument to the Cold War that few will care to visit and no one will be willing to pay for.

Secondly, my opposition to Weston-Otmoor and to Shipton-on-Cherwell as eco-towns or, for that matter, to an urban extension of Oxford City at Grenoble Road is based on careful analysis and not a predisposition to oppose all new developments.

The Weston-Otmoor developers are offering mouth-watering amounts of infrastructure investment that need very careful testing.

However, my continuing worry is the impact on Bicester of a shiny new eco-town just a short distance away. As for Shipton-on-Cherwell, I simply do not think this stacks up in transport terms. How will all those people travel if not by motor car on already congested local roads?

As for Grenoble Road, this is the wrong place for another Blackbird Leys or Greater Leys. To use Green Belt to create an urban extension of some 8,000 homes here would be environmentally destructive and socially damaging.

In accusing me of opposing all development, Mike Gotch conveniently forgets that the South East Plan, of which I was a principal architect, plans for almost 50,000 new homes including 17,500 affordable ones - in Oxfordshire to 2026.

Keith R Mitchell, Leader of Oxfordshire County Council