IN HER article last Tuesday (October 2), Debbie Dance might have made some wrong assumptions about “local people” and “over 70 percent of guests with a registered OX postcode”.

My contention is that most students would use their OX postcode and most would not be classed as “local”.

Yes: Oxford was a fantastic city when it hummed with businesses and welcomed everybody.

It is now a city made up of students and visitors, cyclists and pedestrians.

Like many of my rural friends, Oxford is to be avoided as we are unwelcome and a nuisance. This is aided by the fact there is no bus service through many of the villages. Open Doors? No: slammed shut to the locals.

The Oxford problem is compounded by, for example, Oxford Brookes University who, with their large centre and student accommodation, has subsumed poor old Headington.

Too late now, but surely they should have expanded at their Wheatley site?

Experience Oxfordshire extol the excellence of Witney – who do welcome all visitors with a clean car park and a shopping area with local and national retailers mixing eclectically.

I am in my 70s and lived in Oxfordshire all my life. In the 60s-70s I would visit Turl Street and (what was) the wonderful Covered Market. Not now.

GRAHAM ROSE

Thistledown, Appleton