SIR - Ten, fourteen, thirty thousand pounds each and still escalating! That level of cost for the seats in Cornmarket Street, Oxford, was unforeseen by the public (Oxford Mail, April 2).

I also don't recall seeing a detailed presentation of the design.

Steel and wood seats attached to granite blocks by two to three bolts per seat for such a price? How long will it be before those seats are rattled loose by over-active users?

When I first heard that the seats were to be made of granite, I had a vision of seats made entirely of it, in a variety of colours, and shaped in such a way as to discourage their use as beds and to allow rain to drain away.

Such a design might have been worth a few thousand pounds for each seat as they would have lasted a century or more.

The current seats will be lucky to last a year without damage - and how long before the integral lighting is broken and the bins are knocked off?

Employing attendants to watch over the seats would incur only a small extra charge in relation to the overall cost.

That would appear to be the only way to ensure that our taxes will not have been squandered by the incompetents in the councils.

JOHN MACALLISTER

Kidlington