Sir – A. Watson (Letter, February 26) tries admirably to reconcile the idea of a relief road across Christ Church Meadow with the environmental objections that so far have prevented it being built.

A. Watson’s cut-and-cover tunnel would be 1,000 metres long. Its construction would disturb the Meadow for many months and cost many millions to build.

I would rather such money be invested enlarging Oxford rail station and making Botley Road rail bridge wider and safer.

In 1948, the town planner Thomas Sharp proposed a road across the Meadow to save the High Street’s historic buildings. Sharp’s preferred route would start opposite Speedwell Street, destroy the end of New Walk, fell dozens of trees beside Broad Walk, cut the end off the Botanic Garden and bridge two branches of the Cherwell.

To prevent a bottleneck at The Plain, Sharp would have demolished St Clement’s to widen the road to London Place.

Sharp dismissed a less intrusive proposal by the architect Lawrence Dale, who proposed a road not across the Meadow but around its edge, framed by trees and broad cycleways.

Dale’s road would start opposite Thames Street, run along the north bank of the Isis and cross the Cherwell on a single bridge. It would then, unfortunately, cut through the University sports complex to Iffley Road, and connect with London Place via Marston Street and James Street one-way eastbound and Prince’s Street and James Street one-way westbound.

Thomas Sharp was a visionary who wanted post-war Oxford to be a better place. But much of his vision was impactical: including removing buses from Cornmarket and St Aldate’s, replacing all buses in the High Street with a shuttle between The Plain and the railway station, and strangling Oxford with a 20mph speed limit. No one would revive such daft ideas today would they . . . ?

Hugh Jaeger Oxford