IT IS a scandal that flats earmarked for key workers in East Oxford have lain dormant and redundant for three years.

Craig Simmons, the former Green leader on Oxford City Council, is quite right in condemning the fact that this situation was allowed to develop.

Oxford needs key worker housing because of the large numbers of such people living here, and they need assistance given the cost of accommodation in the city.

The city council was quite right to impose conditions that the development of the East Oxford Health Centre — an institution that has proved to be a huge success – required these homes to be built.

But it should never have been allowed to get to this situation.

First, the flats were never kitted out. And then ‘legal hitches’ caused further delays.

While it would have been unacceptable for officials to have prevented the health centre opening, surely more should have been done during the whole development process by either the council or NHS Oxfordshire, as an interested party?

It hardly gives the key worker scheme any credibility.