I am writing concerning the Botley redevelopment.

If Doric’s highly insensitive and inappropriate proposal for the redevelopment of Botley is pushed through, in spite of all careful explanations as to why it should be reconsidered, it will have to be asked: Who is the council serving?

Are we to watch on helplessly as elderly residents are uprooted so that their excellent Field House sheltered housing, right, and its central garden can be destroyed to make way for a white elephant of a huge multiplex cinema? The proposed replacement housing has no garden, offers only half the accommodation and that tucked away above public spaces. This could smack of ageism as well as profiteering.

There are also issues of transport, size and design which clearly indicate that the Doric proposal is out of scale and style with the area.

After these developers have retreated elsewhere, are we to be left with a vast and ugly monument to people’s powerlessness?

MARGARET ZELDIN

Arnolds Way

Cumnor Hill

Oxford