SO WHERE now councillors Hudspeth and Hollingsworth’s dream on a wet afternoon in what used to be the Opens car park?

Would be too easy to shout out “I told you so”, but as your front page and further reports demonstrate (Oxford Mail, November 15), the birth of the mighty Westgate II might not mature into a productive presence in 21st-century Oxford. As for the poor bereft Cornmarket, could this once beautiful boulevard now be turned into a Barcelona-style garden street, certainly with some Jesus College student accommodation but also with a housing collective or three to provide low-rental housing for families and individuals who can’t otherwise afford to live in Oxford?

Why not a car-free micro-village in Oxford city centre (which is what the Westgate-Oxpens site should have become!) with real affordable homes plus small shop opportunities for businesses such as Amanda Sullivan-Bell’s Rainbow and Spoon, now languishing in Frideswide Square?

E.F. Schumacher really was right: small is beautiful, a concept which seems alien to Oxford city and county councils.
Be brave, councillors, and think small!

Cornmarket can be and must be revived, not just as a parade ground for tourists but as a living, pulsing city-centre community. Is anybody in County Hall or Oxford Town Hall listening?

Of course!

BRUCE ROSS-SMITH 
Bowness Avenue