THE Oxford Civic Society is right to call for a ‘joined-up’ approach to plans for housing employment and the transport infrastructure in and around Oxford which is being slowly and painfully throttled by the present piecemeal approach.

It is also right to suggest the universities join with local government to find that answer.

The Oxford University Hospitals Trust, as major employers and providers of much-used services, should join too. Even if this happens nothing will come of it until there is one unitary council to bring together the functions of the five districts and the county council. Their present separate efforts to solve the problems are well intentioned but frustrated by a lack of coherence. For example, council leaders welcome anything that leads to economic expansion but then wring their hands about shortage of applicants for essential public and private sector jobs. Even when there is an attempt to solve the evident housing shortage in the city, proposals are required from the other four districts, each with a common border with Oxford.

The first of these from Cherwell adds to an urban sprawl by joining Oxford with Kidlington and merging the villages of Yarnton, Bedbroke and Bladon with Wooodstock. And the reaction?

A welcome from the City, with the presumably ironic comment that houses on the golf course will be attractive to Marylebone commuters from nearby Oxford Parkway! It is worth adding that the plan, almost as a guilty afterthought and conscious of its statutory duty to replace sporting facilities, suggests moving a golf course to another site less than half a mile away.

No, the Civic Society is right: we need a joined-up approach which involves the universities, the hospital trust and one unitary council that would save £100m and bring certainty in planning where there currently is none.

TIM BRIGHOUSE Old Road, Headington