The latest consultation on the Westgate Centre leaves little time for comment.

St Ebbe’s has been an open wound for more than 60 years and calling the destruction of a 600-year-old community “slum clearance” is an added insult.

Now the council talks of ‘building strong communities’ while planning to demolish more homes – the 1990s award-winning flats in Abbey Place – and altering a perfectly workable straight road (Norfolk Street) to twist through the only residential part of the whole plan in order to accommodate John Lewis.

If Norfolk Street is to be a major bus route I suggest it should stay as it is. This would give John Lewis at least one shop frontage exposed to the public; otherwise being at the end of the development will not be much of an advantage.

It would also avoid buses passing through a residential area where families live.

Against all the odds I would suggest going back to the drawing board and designing something smaller, more local and more sympathetic.

St Ebbe’s is difficult to access and needs a workable, user-friendly mixture of shops and houses which would encourage genuine growth of the community.

The justified arguments against building on a floodplain and about the massive impact on the whole city of ferrying tonnes of building materials and machinery via Abingdon Road and Botley Road are being cleverly brushed aside.

Some years ago, students at Oxford Brookes circulated a sympathetic and well-thought-out plan for the area which seemed very appropriate.

Unfortunately I did not keep it, assuming future plans would be similar. Now, in the hope there is still a record of it somewhere, I suggest it should be looked at again.

S Perry,

Paradise Square,

Oxford