The Covered Market is one of the gems of Oxford city centre.

In a country with increasingly bland and homogenised high streets, it is an oasis of independent shops.

But you could easily walk past and not know it was there, as the existing signs are woefully inadequate.

The city council needs to be doing everything it can to support traders, but their officers’ latest efforts to redesign the signs have not found favour.

So we suggest the council throws this out to the public.

Ask the people of the city to come up with designs, and have a winner chosen by the traders.

They couldn’t be any worse than what’s there now.