Sir – On the matter of the proposed use as a probation centre of the redeveloped Trajan House, at the end of Mill Street, there are numerous and important objections, as raised by members of our close-knit community. However, we might also like to consider the reactions of the Probation Service’s clientele to such changes in their circumstances.

A former offender known to me says that to walk along a residential street, such as Mill Street, where he would stand out like the proverbial sore thumb, would be an indignity and an embarrassment and lead, quite probably, to anger.

On the question of being asked to travel to the Oxford office from Abingdon or Banbury, as proposed, my informant says he would ‘give them a mouthful’.

So it seems that the only people to take satisfaction from this debacle must be the ambitious civil servants who devised the scheme, no doubt as an exercise in career advancement. What they have not done is take any account of the realities on the ground, of the offenders, the probation officers or, most crucially, the members of the local community. We invite the bureaucrats to come and see for themselves just how totally inappropriate their scheme is.

JC Higgens, New Osney