Sir – So the county council is set to spend £3.7m on giving Frideswide Square a makeover, when social services and libraries across the county are being starved of funds. You quote Huw Jones, the director responsible, as admitting that the project: “carries an inevitable degree of reputation risk for the council”: of course it does.

The existing fiasco at Frideswide Square represents the council’s previous attempt at an ‘improvement’; now, at this time of financial hardship and belt-tightening, it wants to have another go, despite condemnation of the proposals by pedestrian and cyclist groups and at a time when the future size and shape of the rail station, which is critical to the design of the square, is unknown.

What is certain is that the station won’t look like it does now and won’t be feeding the same number of pedestrians, cyclists, cars, taxis and buses into Frideswide Square the way it is now.

So why waste precious cash on a controversial tart-up now? Of course the square is a Bermuda triangle, thanks to the county’s previous efforts but we’ve lived with it and there’s no crisis.

Keith Mitchell has asked in the past what, if not libraries and social services, money should be cut from; here’s his answer.

Let’s wait until the future of the station is known and times are better before throwing cash at this particular “reputational risk”.

J Blackburn, Oxford