BOTLEY’S West Way shopping area is, in planning terms, a ‘Local Service Centre’ but I cannot see how Doric’s plans would do anything to serve our local community.

The bland high-rise design with its six-screen cinema, accommodation for 600 students (with no parking facilities) and supermarket as big as Sainsbury’s at Heyford Hill would wipe out our local shops, cafés and sheltered housing and vastly increase the amount of traffic on our already congested roads.

The developer’s proposal is clearly not designed to serve the needs of local parents and children negotiating the Botley Road on their way to school, or local commuters trying to get out of Botley at rush hour. It is not designed to serve the elderly residents of Field House, or the independent traders of West Way and their customers. So who does stand to benefit?

We deserve an improved shopping area but one that is of sympathetic design that meets the needs of residents and local businesses.

I urge the Tory councillors at the Vale District Council to put profit aside, see sense and pull out of this deal with Doric that seriously threatens the future of our vibrant and unique community.

EMILY SMITH, Sycamore Road, Botley.