I DO NOT know on what grounds James Westerhouse, in his defence of cuts to libraries, (On the Spot, Oxford Mail, May 4) seeks to call me either middle-class or a “deficit denier”, but he is wrong on both counts.

Mr Westerhouse obviously was not at the packed meeting in support of our local library; if he had been, he would have seen the entire community represented.

Indeed, it is not the middle classes with access to transport who are most affected by cuts but the elderly, the disadvantaged and those of slender means, who rely on the libraries for so many services.

As for pubs and post offices, pubs have closed because of new laws about smoking in public places and post offices have been axed because of government policy, leaving many without access to vital facilities.

The real tragedy is that pubs, post offices and libraries represent a dwindling number of centres where a community can find common ground.

Once closed, they do not reopen, leaving whole areas without any means of promoting social cohesion. All this while the Government proclaims the Big Society.

As for where I would cut expenditure, what about curtailing involvement in armed military intervention in places such as Libya?

Every missile and bomb expended there would pay a year’s budget for a library or a youth centre.

Also, every week the Oxford Mail brings news of some shockingly unnecessary outpouring of money by various public bodies.

Our society is so wedded to waste that many of those with responsibility for budgets have not even begun to experience austerity.

MARTIN ROBERTS, Stone Close, Botley, Oxford