JULIE Mabberley (Oxford Mail, September 24), explains very well that employment and housing forecasts for the Vale of the White Horse bear no resemblance to reality.

But housing and jobs delivery is not taking place across the whole of Oxfordshire at the rates suggested either by the Strategic Housing Market Assessment or the unelected Oxfordshire Local Enterprise Partnership.

Delivery of housing and jobs may differ from reality but wild forecasts still have the confidence of both the Conservative County Council and the Labour Oxford City Council, which says nothing good about either council.

Our county needs forward planning based on realistic notions of what is sustainable, desirable and possible by using our brownfield reserves including the under-used resource of surface car parks that should have key worker apartments above them. Intelligent use of the existing built environment is paramount.

Every time a council in Oxfordshire buys a home that has become empty when its sole resident has died and puts a family in it, it makes better use of homes we already possess. Destructive emphasis on new build on greenfield sites, fed by dubious housing and employment forecasts, would deny us future flood protection, forestry industries, and the expansion of agriculture.

When new, well-paid jobs do arrive in our county, it is highly likely that at present they will add to inward commuting as county house prices and rents are very high and increasing.

Rail and bus service improvements may well be more relevant to these future job holders than the dreams some have of coating our countryside in concrete and Tarmac.

STEVE DAWE
County press officer
Oxfordshire Green Party