YOUR report on the city council’s review of Oxford’s Local Plan (April 17) cites a target of 14,250 new homes by 2031.

This is based on the Strategic Housing Market Assessment of 2013 which has been repeatedly discredited because many believe its forecasting of economic growth by 2031 is fallacious and in any case out of date, especially post-Brexit.

Furthermore, Oxford’s unique topography and World Heritage status make it unsuitable for endless growth in the first place, which is why the council’s Northern Gateway project is particularly irresponsible.

The Vale of White Horse leader is quite right in stating that development should not occur when there is not the housing to support it and, he might have added, it should not occur in Oxford’s Green Belt.

Anyone looking up the Local Plan online will see a summary of the importance of the Green Belt and a commitment to restrict development within it but this has been completely struck out by the council’s so-called Core Strategy which was adopted in 2011.

While this recognises the importance of Oxford’s Green Belt, all protection of it has been removed. Instead, emphasis is given to the importance of building housing when there is a scarcity of land. Consequently, whilst there is no longer any commitment to protect the Green Belt, the council persists in threatening it on the basis of figures for housing need many believe are fallacious and no longer valid.

Oxford’s Green Belt provides the unique landscape setting for our city that is renowned the world over and celebrated by artists down the centuries, and it needs to be safeguarded for our children and grandchildren against a council hell-bent on ruining it in a wilful pursuit of growth.

Judging by numerous letters in these pages and by local conservation and heritage bodies, there is no constituency for building in the Green Belt. But instead of dealing with these arguments, the council ignores them and, having abolished its commitment to protect the Green Belt, it continues to restate its case over and over, week by week, in a cynical attempt to soften public opinion to the point when, it hopes, the public will regard building in the Green Belt as inevitable. This was one method adopted by the Brexit and Trump campaigns. Now we have post-truth politics on our own doorstep.

Since planning policy and implementation are still supposed to be part of the democratic process, everyone who cares about Oxford’s Green Belt should insist the council reinstates full protection for it in its new Local Plan and ensures the planning inspector knows about this when he examines the council’s submission.

NIGEL HISCOCK
Great Clarendon Street, Oxford