When councillors decide on something which might benefit them personally, they have to 'declare a retreat'.

Perhaps you should have done this when commenting on Oxfordshire Community Churches' request to our area committee to be allowed to use their building as a conference centre (Oxford Mail, December 12).

Your readers might not know that their building is directly opposite your own headquarters and it would be useful for you to be able to hire rooms for meetings and social events.

Of course, this wouldn't necessarily be bad thing. The trouble would come when large numbers of people from outside the city did the same.

Traffic on Ferry Hinksey Road has been very much in the news lately and your readers will appreciate that the last thing local residents and the primary school want is yet more vehicles pounding up and down their street at all hours of the day and night.

If local groups want to hire rooms they can go to our beautiful new West Oxford Community Centre in Botley Road or to the magnificent Town Hall or to other premises well-served by public transport (which isn't the case at Osney Mead).

Some of us think that Oxfordshire Community Churches are being a bit cheeky. They came to the city council last year complaining that they had nowhere to worship. They managed to make enough councillors so sorry for them that they gave temporary permission for the former Oxford Instruments building to be used as a place of worship.

This was against the advice of our officers who pointed out that we had promised to keep this site for things like hi-tech labs or studios. Now Oxfordshire Community Churches want to hire out the premises on a large scale. It is rather like someone building a house and then turning it into a nightclub.

This might well be unpopular with the neighbours!

SUSANNA PRESSEL (Cllr)

Oxford City Council