STUART Skyte’s letter attacking the idea of Area Committees (August 29) seems to totally miss the point. Area Committees with their devolved powers of planning devolved budgets and areas of responsibility were a democratic structure that engaged and empowered local communities.

All the councillors from a particular area were involved in decision making, not a small select group (with an inbuilt Labour majority) as we have now on the centralised model for planning. For most decisions the Central Policy Committee (CEB) is composed of only Labour councillors excluding everybody else’s views. In Area Committees councillors knew their area well and reflected the opinions of their communities.

The Area Committees were introduced at the turn of the century, at the bequest of the Green Councillors with Lib-Dem support. Localism and democracy are deep within the DNA of the Green Party, and when Labour, after 2010, began to centralise power by abolishing the Area Committees, giving extra powers to the (Labour) leader of council and introducing one-man committees (all Labour) the Greens consistently tried to stop them with vote after vote.

Labour moved in this direction even though the formal public consultation said overwhelmingly that the Area Committees were popular and did a good job.

Labour claimed that the Area Committees were expensive but looking at the figures, this is a fallacy. They would have cost only a little more and what price is democracy?

Councillor David Williams, Green councillor, London Road, Oxford