DORIC Properties must be counting on our preoccupation with New Year’s resolutions. Why else would the promise of a new gym make us happy to evict our neighbours and lay waste to every single one of our thriving independent shops?

Since September, the developers of the West Way shops in Botley have done absolutely nothing to address the legitimate concerns of discontented residents. They have failed to discuss or even acknowledge the central issue: that the mammoth (largely unwanted) scale of their proposals is only achieved by destroying people’s homes.

The planning process only allows us to object on material grounds, but somewhere human decency must prevail. A new gym, which will only be used by the few with enough time and money to access it, is not a fair exchange for 60+ homes that would be demolished and not rebuilt.

A larger supermarket, which in any case could be achieved on the original development site, does not offset the permanent loss of the small shops and independent traders who will not be able to afford the higher rents.

Let’s wake up from our holiday haze and think about viable alternatives to Doric’s supersized proposals. There is enough land on the main site (the 1960s’ buildings only) for the best aspects of their plans, including the gym if there is truly demand for it.

Let’s push for the development that locals need and want, without forcing our most vulnerable neighbours to trade in their homes for Doric’s PR spin.

Caroline Potter, Seacourt Road, Botley