Sir – I was pleased to see that your editorial (December 15) questioned the wisdom of interfering with a national arterial traffic route in order to gain a mere 1,200 extra homes for Oxford.

I’m not going to question the need for the homes (it’s clear, after all), but the idea that a little is taken away from the many to give to the few. Restrictions on the Northern Bypass will hit Oxford residents and national traffic alike, with no compensation, for the benefit of a few developers.

I don’t relish the idea of an extra few minutes a week stuck on the bypass, and if you multiply me by a few thousand or, more likely, a few tens of thousands daily, a very large number of people will find their day made just a fraction more difficult by turning the Northern Bypass into a replica of Botley Road.

The purpose of the ring road was to keep through traffic out of the city. The need for it has not diminished, as we all recognise, and we need it far more now than we did when it was built.

Even as it is, Sunderland Avenue homes have to put up with being on a national main route. I can only assume that the proposal for changes to the Northern Bypass will be funded by the developer — no one else has an interest in providing such a skimpy and inadequate solution.

Let the development go ahead by all means, on condition that the developers are required to remedy any detriment they cause to through traffic.

And we should make them do it properly, rather than the cheap and nasty solution that is currently proposed.

Philip Cresswell, Oxford