Your correspondent Simon Ryde (February 27) is right to caution those living close to the proposed Northern Gateway to be wary of ticking a questionnaire box saying that they would like to see ‘improvements to the Wolvercote Roundabout’, lest this is later held to justify more than they bargained for.
Over here in Botley, many of us said, innocently, in response to a questionnaire a few years ago that we would like to see ‘improvements’ to our local shops.
We now find that this is deemed to mean a mammoth superstore, with a six-screen cinema, a 100-bed hotel and 525 student rooms – none of which had featured on the original questionnaire. Oh, and despite building to seven storeys over most of the site, accommodating all this seems to call for the demolition of all the existing shops, the occupied vicarage and a block of 60 flats for older people. So watch out, Wolvercote.
JANET GODDEN, Oxfordshire County Councillor for North Hinksey division, Hurst Rise Road, Oxford
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