Sir - As regular customers of many of the traders in the Covered Market, we were shocked to read of the steep rent rises that they now face.

It is hard to see the justification for such large increases, if the result is to be that Oxford residents will lose the services of the traders that they most appreciate.

We think especially of the market's food traders, who give excellent service, and whose businesses will be put in jeopardy if rents are raised on this scale.

They give the city's consumers the choice not to be dependent on the large anonymous supermarkets which will be the only beneficiaries if the independent traders are forced to close down.

Surely the city council must moderate the folly of its rack-renting demands if it considers for a moment the interests both of the traders and of their well-satisfied customers.

John and Janet Toye, Oxford