SO, Duncan Enright (‘We need long-term A40 plan to end congestion’, December 3) is to solve the A40 problem single-handed when he ousts David Cameron at the general election. The former is as likely as the latter.

As the pages of your journal attest, the A40 problem has been with us for decades. It is now so serious that Oxford is sometimes inaccessible from Witney. As the Conservative leader of Oxfordshire County Council now admits, doing nothing is no longer an option. Even our Conservative MP has just conceded, somewhat unhappily, that the A40 is the jackboot on the windpipe of the West Oxfordshire economy. They are right.

Such admissions have come not through pointless posturing, but rather through concerted, unrelenting pressure forced on those able to effect change.

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Chief among these pressure groups is WOT (Witney Oxford Transport), which has been presenting arguments for alternative transport means to dozens of groups over the past year. Merciless WOT pressure has helped secure a baseline report outlining the issues, and the appointment of consultants to cost the options. A WOT delegation will be visiting the consultants this Thursday.

This is huge progress, particularly as money is now available to make a start on a solution sufficiently visionary to offer the people of Carterton and Witney hope of radical change. But this has come through people willing to work together in common cause.

To be sure, the Greens are active in WOT, but so too are the Tories, and the political persuasions of others are yet to be revealed. WOT’s success has been gained through co-operation in a venture to provide critical infrastructure for us all.

The attempt of a single individual to make political capital out of our common crisis contributes nothing.

Stuart Macdonald
Green Party prospective parliamentary candidate for the Witney constituency



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