I AM writing concerning the proposed redevelopment of the West Way shopping centre.

A recent correspondent of yours wrote to explain why she disagreed with the premise on which Doric Properties, the proposed developers of the West Way site, based their elaborate plans. I am writing to second her excellently thought-out and worded letter.

Doric repeatedly state that 70 per cent of Botley residents do their main shopping elsewhere than at the West Way Centre.

Presumably this is demonstrable fact. What Doric in their naivety cannot seem to grasp is that most people here want to do their main shopping elsewhere.

Most of us use the West Way centre for day-to-day needs, for top-ups to mega-supermarket trips further afield and for the varied services and facilities that only a local centre can provide.

The reason that many of us go elsewhere for major shopping is because we prefer to. We do not want a mega-supermarket, multiplex and high street boutiques here because they would replace the local facilities that we want and need to preserve on hand.

My husband and I relocated to the Oxford area two years ago from the Surrey commuter belt; we chose Botley specifically because of its local flavour and provision; its unique combination of an eclectic mix of convenient neighbourhood facilities, coupled with rapid and easy access to Oxford city and outlying attractions, for us was irresistibly appealing.

Hence with dismay we greeted this absurdly disproportionate plan put forward by Doric. Progress and improvement, yes but within the parameters of what Botley residents are emphatically saying: keep our locality local.

RUTH CAMERON
Conifer Close
Botley