Sir - Reading the Letters to the Editor for December 21 made me realize that there is no limit to the extent individuals and special interest groups want to get their snouts into the public purse.

Not only Cogges Museum, but now also the Covered Market are suggested as deserving of council largesse.

I know councillors are prone to agree all sorts of unsustainable subsidies, particularly at election time, which a few years later will come to haunt them or their successors, but sometimes it really is necessary to call time.

As a listed building the Cogges farmhouse will surely remain whether in its present use and ownership or otherwise, and I wonder if the animal husbandry currently undertaken ranks as farming or as some sort of urban zoo.

In the case of the Covered Market, while I expect the city council's bureaucratic administrative overheads make the running costs much greater than necessary, on the basic principle, I do not see why council tax should be used to subsidise one set of shops over any other.

Frank Bland, Oxford