The eye-catching pictures issued at the launch of the county council’s new transport strategy (April 3) appear worryingly divorced from its claim that the new policy will be evidence-based.

Buses and not trams will remain the basis of the city’s transport. They have the advantage that they can serve different areas at the end of each main traffic artery and be switched easily from one route to another.

When the enlarged Westgate shopping centre is opened, the bus routes from the north should be extended to it, providing good access and helping to create the central interchange point between bus routes the city so badly needs. This could be linked to a new railway station in Oxpens if Network Rail abandoned its bodged rebuilding scheme, the third since 1970.

Pedestrianising George Street would deprive the buses from the north of their priority route to Oxpens. What alternative is envisaged?

A sensible transport plan and future land use must be considered together. The post-war policy of restraining growth in the Oxford area, on which the present Green Belt boundaries were based, is dead.

The Government, the two universities and local councils are committed to the growth of a knowledge-based economy.

The Government abolished the grandiose south-east plan, which replaced the Oxfordshire structure plan, but has put nothing in its stead except a vague City Deal and encouragement to the five district councils to co-operate. The danger is that developers will feel encouraged to try their luck all over the place.

The essential is that the new homes and jobs are located where they can most easily be served by public transport and that there is a coherent plan for the whole Oxford sub-region. When and how will a mechanism be developed to achieve this?

Mark Barrington-Ward, Apsley Road, Oxford