Your article ‘Hundreds of balloon campaigners form human chain to burst Doric’s Botley dreams, October 13’, once again demonstrates the utterly cynical attitude of Doric with respect to the local community in Botley.

It is quite remarkable that they can claim that they “have answered calls made from the Vale of the White Horse District Council and local residents to propose an exciting and vibrant development”, when the opposite is clearly the case.

The residents do not want their proposal and Doric have singularly failed to produce any hard evidence to the contrary.

It also beggars belief that they can assert that the “silent majority”, as they put it, are in favour of the scheme.

Today’s letters

In a democracy, generally speaking, the so-called silent majority get what they deserve.

The number of expressions of opposition to the Doric proposals far outnumber the few in support of it, as registered on the Vale’s planning portal. No one in the area can be unaware of the controversy that the plans have created; despite this, there is no sign that the “majority” seem to want to take part in the democratic process to ensure that what Doric claim they want is delivered.

I suspect that is because, actually, the supporters of the scheme are a tiny minority, who haven’t thought through the dire consequences that will follow if the proposal is approved by the Vale.

Dr Alan Reeve, Hazel Road, Oxford

  • Do you want alerts delivered straight to your phone via our WhatsApp service? Text NEWS or SPORT or NEWS AND SPORT, depending on which services you want, and your full name to 07767 417704. Save our number into your phone’s contacts as Oxford Mail WhatsApp and ensure you have WhatsApp installed.