KATE Carne is right (Letters 26/3) about the proposed destruction of quiet woodland and the nature reserve at Lye Valley if an expensive new road is built.

Lye Valley itself is a road which borders a ravine which is the Lye Valley, giving the whole area its name.

This ravine would mean a new road would require a massive viaduct.

Noise levels and air pollution in the neighbouring housing would increase dramatically.

How the Lye Valley road itself could be widened is a question, since it is of variable width and it is tough to widen a road when it is next to a very steep slope.

But we should consider the politics involved. The Conservative-controlled county council would like to build the new road; on the opposite side of the valley at Warren Crescent there is a long-standing proposal to build housing on green space used as children’s informal play area, which has ‘rested’ with the Labour city council for some years.

The city council favours a novel, untested drainage system for this area of housing that it asserts would help to retain the special conditions in the Lye Valley nature reserve.

Experiments belong in laboratories, not in our natural environment, and housing belongs on brownfield sites.

So the Conservatives have plans on one side of the valley, and Labour on the other. The record of poor biodiversity protection by both parties in Government speaks for itself.

A previous attempt to build housing on the golf course which adjoins the Lye Valley was beaten off years ago.

If would be really good if our Conservative county and Labour city councils would stop plotting to destroy a valued green space with unique features that is one of the most tranquil areas of eastern Oxford.

STEVE DAWE County press officer, Oxfordshire Green Party Bulan Road, Oxford