Sir – At the recent meeting to discuss the Magdalen Road CPZ, it was clear that feelings are running high on both sides of the debate. This is reflected by the mobilisation this last week of the ‘pro’ camp into their own leaflet drop, in reaction to the recent upswell of opposition to the county council’s scheme, and in the submission to your letters page (November 26).

In fact there’s probably relatively little in the way of clear air between the two sets of opinions — one suspects that it would be difficult to find an East Oxford parent that doesn’t encounter poor pavement parking on a daily basis for example.

However, for many of us, it is the ill-conceived ‘blunderbuss’ approach being taken by the council that is objectionable, as well as the poorly concealed subtext that revenue generation is the real driver.

What possible reason, other than revenue generation, can the council have for limiting the number of visitors’ permits per household to 50, 25 of which will be charged for? As one single mother at the meeting pointed out, if her mother comes to help out three times a week she’ll be out of permits in four months.

How can this possibly be “fair”, to paraphrase a favourite claim of the pro-camp? Similarly, the council have not yet offered any response to the sensible suggestion that the first permit per household should be free, with proportionately more charged for the second if necessary.

There appears to be an alarming degree of naivety on the pro side — even more telling in a week when parking charges have risen again in the city.

Once this scheme is implemented, the opportunity to make absolutely sure it is really and truly going to deal with the problems, and not simply make more of them, will be gone forever.

The real way to improve the traffic and parking problems in East Oxford is to first throw out what is an ill-conceived scheme born of flawed baseline studies.

The community would then be able to engage with the transport planners on a level playing field, and ensure that such solutions that are devised are actually tailored to the problems, not merely to the council’s fiscal aspirations.

Dominic Woodfield, Oxford