Sir – I write to second Alan Alcock’s question “Do we need more shops?” (Letters, February 18). I hope that the Crown Estate will look at the development of the Westgate area and see it in the context of a city centre already blighted by boarded-up shops which no one can afford to rent.

Oxford’s geography and road infrastructure cannot support current retail provision let alone a massive new shopping mall, and the idea that the future of this historic city centre lies in developing shopping is a depressingly impoverished aspiration. What is urgently needed is the proper provision of cultural amenities for arts professionals, students and local community. The refurbishment of Pegasus Theatre and the Old Fire Station cannot hide the fact that even when these works are completed, Oxford will still be without a proper concert hall, without a theatre with physical and programming space to accommodate small to mid-scale dance as well as theatre, and without dedicated full-time rehearsal space properly equipped to enable vocational and professional standard work in dance, music and theatre.

Not only does this impede the development of local talent and home-grown work, but visiting companies are increasingly unwilling to come to a city which cannot cater to their needs. It seems to be assumed that a picturesque façade of honey-coloured historic buildings makes up culturally for a lack of adequate facilities for arts practice and performance, and that the primary city centre services that the public need in these straitened times are shops.

Artists have historically been drivers of regeneration in many inner city areas, where the presence of creative people doing imaginative things has attracted visitors and business.

Putting support into such activity in the centre of Oxford may prove the soundest investment for planners and landowners.

Susie Crow, Ballet in Small Spaces, Oxford