CHRISTMAS has come early to those of us Botley residents who do not want to see Doric’s grandiose creation destroy our local shopping area, with the article in Wednesday’s Oxford Mail, ‘City Brands West Way Plan too large and unjustified’.

This is a welcome announcement from the principal planning officer of Oxford City Council, who has written to colleagues saying that “we understand the need for improvements to the environment at the West Way shopping centre. However, the function should remain as a local service centre...there is no justification” for such a scheme.

Oxford Mail:

Campaigners protest the Westway development

Botley suffers from the anomalous position of being a residential suburb of the city of Oxford, as much a part of Oxford as, for example, Summertown, Cowley or Iffley – but politcally just within the Vale of White Horse.

And suffers is indeed apt, if this mad scheme, out of all proportion to need and reality, gets the go-ahead from the Vale.

Let’s hope that the Vale planners take as reasonable a view as their neighbours in the city when they study Doric’s detailed submission, expected today. So thank you, Oxford City Planning Department: Some sense at last. Merry Christmas to you, too.

RUTH CAMERON

Conifer Close

Botley