TWO concerning reports in the Oxford Mail (December 30), illustrates a politically divided Oxford.

The Labour-controlled city council urges us to contribute to the “vision of how Oxford will look in 2050...with driverless cars and robot workers”. While the churches “throwing open their doors to the homeless”.

Despite Oxford’s wealth in the form of house prices, huge investment into driverless cars and associated technological entrepreneurial marvels, the wealth of the colleges and the £200m being spent on the OxfordCambridge technological corridor, Oxford is re-entering a Dickensian era characterised by churches and individuals like Sister Frances, the two men who pioneered the Oxford Food Bank model and other public spirited individuals, finding solutions for the perennial mantel of providing practical assistance to Oxford’s low paid; those with mental health difficulties, homeless former military personnel, those who have become victims of drugs, gambling, and alcohol misuse and those made homeless by the council’s inability to provide public accommodation of rents in line with Oxford’s living wage.

The 2,000-year-old Christmas message is that the Lord Jesus (Yeshua) was born to homeless parents. Today, despite having wealthy councils and even wealthier publicly funded colleges and institutions, practical assistance for the homeless is being pioneered by the churches and individuals.

We have to question the motive of party-controlled elected councillors who are clearly more concerned with using public funds to create wealth for the wealthy, rather than homes and services for the homeless and for Oxford’s working poor.

CHAKA ARTWELL

Barton