Sir – Ann Symonds suggests closing Queen Street because it worked for a short period of roadworks once . . . in 1963. Maybe it worked then, because there were several times fewer vehicles on the country’s roads then than now? Bus services too were much less frequent — now every four minutes on some routes.

I also suspect the intensity of shopping and international tourism, which now ensure the city centre is thick with crowds 364 days a year, was much lower.

Ann also misses the point that Hugh Jaeger was trying to make about connecting bus services in the city centre. It is not simply a case of accommodating those with heavy shopping and mobility issues from the shops to their bus stop. The city’s buses need to work as a network.

Using a light train, as Ann suggests, to connect the disjointed ends of bus journeys of only a couple of miles across the city, is a serious disincentive to use the bus in the first place and will only serve to encourage short inner-city car journeys and increase congestion.

Journeys from the Abingdon Road to Jericho, or from the Cowley Road to Summertown, should involve a quick, short change in the centre. A major redevelopment like the Westgate should be an opportunity to make this easier for people — not more difficult.

Noam Bleicher, Oxford