Sir – Mr Tyce, in his letter of April 24, describes Oxford City Council as ‘rapacious and expansionist’ and claiming to have used up all its own land.

In fact there are good reasons for the city council taking the view that it has insufficient land within its own borders to meet all its housing needs. The unaffordability of housing in Oxford, the rate at which individual dwellings are being replaced by blocks of flats and the spirited defence of open land in the city by residents against any proposals for development are all indicators of the pressure on the land supply.

It is surely reasonable for the city to seek to meet some its housing needs outside its boundaries rather than see its character change with an increasing density of development.

He then goes on to criticise the SHMA stating that their assessment of a need of 100,000 dwellings across the county by 2031 is mainly to accommodate new arrivals.

In fact 58,000 of these dwellings are to meet household growth projections, including a reversal of the trend for young people to stay with their parents for longer than in the past.

The remainder is to accommodate jobs arising from economic growth and to meet the demand for affordable housing.

Crucially, there is no mention of the fact that the SHMA is a starting point, to be followed by the Oxfordshire local authorities working together ‘to refine and test what level of future housing development can be sustainably (my emphasis) planned for across the Oxfordshire housing market area and how this is distributed across different areas’.

This process does not suggest that there will be a developers’ free-for-all building houses rough-shod across the county.

Henry Brougham, Kidlington