Sir – I attended the Oxfordshire County Council cabinet meeting on July 17.

The implications of the Secretary of State’s decision to refuse the compulsory purchase order for land required by the Cogges Link Road scheme were considered with respect to Witney’s traffic problems.

The 2012 applications to extend the 2009 link road planning permission and discharge the conditions attached to that permission were formally withdrawn.

However, it was disturbing to hear that the council is planning to continue defending the judicial review concerning the legality of the Farm Mill Lane works and, therefore, the validity of the 2009 planning permission itself.

The environmental impact assessment regulations are very clear that any applications to discharge the conditions precedent in the 2009 planning permission must be properly publicised.

The council did not fulfil this obligation, and so the works were unlawful. Furthermore, the public inquiry inspector concluded in his January 2012 report that application of the sequentialtest for the Cogges Link Road scheme fails.

The national planning policy framework specifies that this test should be applied when considering planning applications, so even if applications to discharge the conditions had been publicised according to the statutory requirements, they could not have been properly approved.

Why is Oxfordshire County Council continuing to waste yet more taxpayers’ money defending a position that is clearly indefensible?

Alex Kinchesh, Manor Road, Witney