Sir – Following my earlier letter and now Susie Crow’s pleas for a purpose-built centre, Oxford City Council must now realise that without such a centre, there is no hope in becoming a city of culture.

With the exception of a national department store such as the already-agreed John Lewis development, the city does not need a further shopping centre — there are already most of the High Street names here, or in Banbury, and we should support the traders in Oxford Covered Market anyway.

The Westgate shopping precinct should be scrapped. Instead, the site could be developed to include:

A modern state-of-the-art performing arts centre, which itself should have the following facilities:

A multi-purpose concert hall and conference centre

Rehearsal studios

Exhibition hall

Art gallery

Facilities for indoor sports events (separate halls i.e. badminton, tennis, fencing, basketball etc)

Modern changing facilities and public washrooms/toilets

Separate parking and bus terminal

Cafés and restaurant

If space allows, a separate or inclusive public library Above all, the building should be a place where people wish to come — it should provide comfortable seating, good acoustics and a view of the platform/stage from every seat. No more, those uncomfortable, back-destroying seats of the Sheldonian!

It should be a centre that Oxford should be proud of.

David Widdowson, Church Enstone

PS Not so long ago Elizabeth Maxwell had a scheme for the concert hall — what happened?