Sir, You have given space recently to discussion of how perfunctory the county council's consultation exercise over the extended North Oxford parking scheme was. I have just received a letter about the experimental temporary closure of Jackson Road asking for local feedback.

The key feature of the letter is the sentence which states: Please note that any questionnaires not returned will be considered as an agreement to the permanent placement of the left-turn ban.

This looks to me very much like the Highways Department again treating the consultation exercise as an annoying, but necessary, stage to be gone through before the department implements a decision that it has no intention of changing.

I cannot decide whether the author of the letter is too stupid to realise that he has given himself away, or is an honest man who wishes to warn the public that he has been given peremptory and unpalatable instructions to get the job done regardless of any local views.

Whichever may be the case, the council has clearly prejudged the decision and proposes to treat the responses as justifying the decision that has already been taken.

Philip Cresswell, Oxford