Sir, Tim King (Letters, October 13) points out that I want to see more social housing in the Westgate development, but opposed the building proposals for the Trap Grounds. There is no inconsistency here: Oxford's housing needs could be satisfied by building on brownfield land rather than using valuable pockets of undeveloped green space.
Your readers may be interested in some figures about how many households could be accommodated in the Westgate development. The developer intends to increase the amount of space devoted to shopping by 500,000 sq ft. The average UK home is about 1,000 sq ft.
So if the extra space for shops was instead used for social housing, it could accommodate at least 500 new homes. This would cut the number of people in temporary housing by almost 60 per cent, of which about 800 would be children.
The politicians who will vote on the Westgate plans on the evening of October 30 in the Town Hall should be asking themselves a simple question. Does Oxford need a big new shopping centre, or should it look after its homeless residents properly?
Chris Goodall, Oxford
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