AS a former proprietor of a long-established family business in the Covered Market can I bring a sense of proportion and realism to the issue of the rent hike (Oxford Mail, August 18).

There seems to be a notion among officials that it is only public institutions that are affected in adverse economic times, and that somehow those of us in the outside world are insulated against such events.

In the article, Councillor Cook says in justification for the council doubling the rent of this small unit, fixed only last year by an independent arbitrator, that “we must make as much use as we can of the assets we have”.

Is a couple of thousand pounds likely to make the remotest difference to the council’s financial situation?

Is it worth compromising the market’s unique and endearing qualities for such a piffling short term gain?

This sort of stock automaton response from our “conditioned” elected representatives does not wash. Here it flies in the face of the council’s historical approach to the Covered Market and seems to me to be the start of the slippery slope.

But, as I have said in these columns previously, it’s only a matter of time before the council cries poverty as an excuse to offload the market to a developer because it cannot reverse the years of neglect.

ALAN LESTER, Northcourt Road, Abingdon