Sir – Hugh McManners (Letters, August 23) is exercised about what he imagines are the forces of party politics in local planning decisions and in particular in the recent decision not to grant planning permission for the development of student accommodation above the St Clements car park.

Mr McManners’s letter is full of misunderstandings. Planning decisions are, by law, taken without regard to party politics and none of the Oxford parties take prior positions on planning applications (though they do on broader matters of policy — in which it should be noted that they all agree that development of car park sites is desirable as long as sufficient parking provision is maintained).

When my committee considered the St Clements application, it voted to refuse planning permission by a vote of eight to one. As a matter of fact, five of the eight councillors voting to refuse permission were Labour, two were Lib Dem and one was Green. Mr McManners also seems to inhabit a parallel universe in which ‘St Clements remains the sole preserve of the Green Party’, whatever that means. Again, as a matter of fact, the last time the people of St Clements elected a Green city councillor was nearly half a decade ago. In 2010, they elected Graham Jones, a Liberal Democrat, and in 2012 they plumped for Bev Clack, who is a member of the Labour Party. Indeed, it was Professor Clack who proposed and Dr Jones who seconded the planning committee’s refusal of the St Clements application.

I think that before getting so hot and bothered about ‘party politics’ that he wrote a letter filled with inaccuracy to the local paper, Mr McManners ought to have taken steps to inform himself about exactly what had been done and by whom.

All members of the west area planning committee, irrespective of our party political ‘colour’ or ward, take decisions for the whole of the 12-ward area we cover using a quasi-judicial procedure and in line with the Local Development Framework, other relevant policies of the city council and the law. We explicitly and emphatically do not do so as party political representatives.

Oscar Van Nooijen, Chairman, West Area Planning Committee