I AM glad there is now to be a crossing put in place outside the Marriotts Walk shopping centre in Witney.

However, I cannot understand how it could have been just an oversight. Surely people must have had a clue when the crossing had to be removed for the building of the shopping centre?

Now, because of this oversight, it will cost the county council (that’s you and me) £25,000. And I would bet no one in the planning department will have to answer for it.

When you look at the planning for this shopping centre, it makes you think a child might have done better. Take the traffic lights at the fire station end. If one car is turning right, then all the cars have to wait to get through the lights.

This can mean that, other than the car turning right, no one moves because the lights often change before they gets across.

Then there is the decision to put a bus stop in a two-lane road, without allowing for a layby for it to pull into. This also holds up the traffic.

In addition, there are problems with the paving slabs. I have lost count of the broken slabs on the footpath on the shopping centre side. And these have just been put down.

Some are where the workmen and their cherry pickers have been on the pavement. And in areas where lorries cross pavements to get to the rear of the shopping centre, nearly every slab is cracked. Have they been designed to take the weight of lorries going over them?

I hope the developers will not expect to be paid to do them again. There other things wrong with this development, which would take to long to mention. All I will add is that the planning department should be looking at how these mistakes can be rectified – without it costing us all a lot of money.

Denis Newcombe Witney