Sir – On February 19, you reported a council planning officer as recommending that the expansion of Campsfield should be approved. He said that the objectors are opposed 'on the grounds that.... it is ethically and morally unacceptable to incarcerate them', an argument he rejects. But perhaps the inadequacy of the account is because of your omission, which thus provides a limited and entirely misleading account of the objections that have been made, a total of 14.

Among those, three of the most important are that:

1: The Government's own trend figures show that more detention beds are not needed

2: Government figures show that larger detention centres have more disturbances and

3: A Parliamentary inquiry into  the use of detention centres is not due to report till March.

Objections have come from parish councils, through 65 public submissions including a letter signed by 21 Oxfordshire organisations and another signed by 60 senior Oxford academics, the Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg, MP Nicola Blackwood and all prospective candidates for the Oxford West And Abingdon constituency. Fortunately the decision has so far been deferred.

Janet Toye, Oxford