The three pages dedicated to the Seera housing debate (Oxford Mail, November 2) talked of a lack of democracy, with councillors not voting according to responses to the recent consultation.

What you failed to mention was that this was the second round of consultations.

The first, in spring this year, asked whether or not new houses should be built in the Green Belt and produced a large response in support of saving Green Belts in general, and against building urban extensions to Oxford within the Green Belt in particular.

A lot of the confusion can be blamed on the recent consultation which the Liberal Democrat Group found to be badly flawed.

There were no public meetings, the dates and times of the exhibitions were poorly advertised and the booklet produced for the exhibitions had no background material or current factual information.

There were also complaints that no-one was present to answer questions at the exhibitions and that the wording on the response leaflet was misleading. Much of the detail was available only through the county council's website, which is not accessible to all.

This less than impressive consultation was then overwhelmed by the Labour-led city council's resurrection of the old 'build south of Grenoble Road' argument (rejected only a few months ago), now magnified into a stunning 8,000 houses. What your readers have not been told is that only the Liberal Democrat group voted to keep the Green Belt free.

The Liberal Democrats have been listening carefully to what people have been saying, that they do not want vast estates tacked on to the edge of Oxford eating away at the Green Belt.

Liberal Democrat votes carried the day at County Hall, and we can only hope that other councillors who showed such scant regard for the Green Belt do not encourage John Prescott to overrule last week's decision. That truly would be undemocratic.

Anne Purse (Councillor)

Shadow Cabinet member for Sustainable Development

Oxfordshire County Council