You recently published a letter (September 20) from Terry Knight concerning housing expansion and business development.
However, he suggests that the only jobs brought by new developments will be a few hi-tech positions. The proposed developments at Culham Science Park promise 1,000 new jobs and the Tesco distribution centre at Milton Hill promises 750 jobs. These numbers are not trivial.
At Culham, the number of people directly employed by the businesses might look low but much of the work may be done by agency workers or sub-contractors.
Also, the businesses and workers will create still more jobs by buying goods and services from local sources.
Mr Knight suggests that high-volume employers will go where labour is plentiful and cheap: fine in theory but not what happens in practice.
He quotes the low local unemployment rate and asks who will live in the new houses.
Where you get low unemployment, there are usually job vacancies. These jobs would be available for people who will live in the new houses.
Also, there are quite a lot of people in work who would like a place of their own but can’t afford one at present. The reason? Not enough houses have been built.
Mr Knight also asks about the effect of building more houses on the local property market. These developments should help to keep values down, possibly reduce them. This would be a good thing: property values here are far too high and have been for more than 40 years.
Peter Smith
Bostock Road
Abingdon
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