Sir – Your editorial on hospital car parking (March 19) is well-argued as usual, but wrong. Car ownership rose from 8,000 cars for the wealthy in 1900, to 2.5 million in 1934 following mass production, and 28.7 million at the end of 2012 (DVLA statistics).

Forecasts for 2020 range from 37 million to 42 million cars. London traffic suffers “gridlocks”; these will occur in Oxford, and other UK cities, unless they resist the UK car lobby comprising 20 million households owning cars (20% own two or more).

You imply that the chaos outside the John Radcliffe is due to “families driving children to school or shopping”. Most drivers make essential journeys to and from work, hence the traffic queues on Oxford’s major roads at the start and end of every weekday. Shoppers can choose other times, but many hardworking Oxford mothers drive their children to and from school before and after work; they have no option.

Oxford visitors to the John Radcliffe hospital have an option: the seven bus routes servicing the JR – No 10, U4, S7 (Headington), S5 (Glory Farm), 14, 14A and 17A (city centre).

Visitors from outside Oxford can use the John Radcliffe Hospital bus services from park-and-ride car parks – No 800 (Thornhill), No 600 (Pear Tree), X13, (Abingdon, Redbridge) and No 700 (Kidlington, Water Eaton, serving all three hospitals).

In-patient and outpatient numbers have increased annually to 76,144 and 669,542 (2011/12).

Future growth in hospital departments, cars and patients will ensure that car parking spaces are never enough. A very few car owners can park at their destinations. Most cannot and need encouragement to use public transport which is the only sustainable answer in Oxford and other European cities.

Brian Wilson
Weston-on-the-Green