Sir – The Campaign to Protect Rural England, founded before there was effective planning legislation, is a good cause which is in danger of turning into a vested interest. In an area where house prices are already high, it must not become the Campaign to make Property Ridiculously Expensive.

Most of the Oxford Green Belt must be kept inviolate to protect the city’s setting and the fingers of green along its rivers and to stop the joining up of Oxford and neighbouring areas like Kidlington which want to keep their own identity.

But there is a case that where the main aim of the boundary is to prevent urban sprawl, land can be taken out of the Green Belt provided that the principle of keeping a defined line between town and country is maintained.

Successive governments have decided that in the national interest the Oxford region should become a centre for science-based industry.

More jobs will require homes, particularly much-needed affordable social housing. On planning this, Green Belt land cannot be left out of consideration.

But the CPRE is right to complain about the method. The Government has left the decision about where new homes should go to the piecemeal planning of five district councils while putting them under pressure to provide more homes through a consultants’ study. This seems unlikely to provide an optimum result.

We need a plan based on putting new homes where journeys to work and to shop can most easily be made by public transport. We also need a body similar to a new town corporation to retain for the community more of the profit from the inevitable changes of land use.

All should be subject to a public inquiry at which objectors like the CPRE can put their case.

Mark Barrington-Ward, Oxford