SIR - Your editorial comparing St Clement's, Cornmarket and Abingdon Road in Oxford is wide of the mark and a cheap shot (Oxford Mail, April 13).

Everyone is aware that the Cornmarket scheme has had problems and the city and county councils are about to set up joint investigations. To compare St Clement's and Abingdon Road with Cornmarket is journalistic distortion at its worst. Routine maintenance work is taking place on roads all the time because they get worn out. All main routes into Oxford carry a large volume of traffic, and we have forward plans to restore them to ensure they are safe. We time these works to minimise inconvenience.

The Abingdon Road work is part of our routine maintenance programme. To castigate us for acting promptly to keep roads safe is ridiculous.

The council last carried out major maintenance work in St Clement's Street in 2001. You state that the street has collapsed within months of being resurfaced by council contractors. This is not true.

We did not do work there last summer or the summer before. We did work in 2001, without a road closure, but the small areas now needing patching are not ones we reconstructed then. Water leaks have damaged the road.

Feedback from some businesses where we have carried out schemes has indicated that the negative and often hysterical media outbursts have created more damage to businesses than the disruption caused by the work.

At least we take steps to reduce disruption and provide positive and helpful information to the media, the public, adjacent businesses, travel organisations and operators.

We also respond to feedback with a view to helping those affected. This is in stark contrast to scaremongering by your newspaper.

DAVID ROBERTSON (Councillor)

Executive Member for Transport

Oxfordshire County Council