Sir - Much as I respect Peter Sloman, our new chief executive, for already improving the city council efficiency, I cannot agree with his verdict on the Westgate.

In last week's issue he is quoted as saying that it will turn Oxford from a regional centre into a world-class city. Oxford is already internationally acknowledged as a world-class city.

The proposed development with its mish-mash of clumsy buildings and the extra traffic it will generate, could well detract from the city's historic setting.

It may however improve our standing as a regional centre for those desperate for a local John Lewis store, but certainly won't add to our world renown. I have guided international visitors around Oxford over the last 20 years. Not one of them has asked the whereabouts to a John Lewis.

Visitors do love the Covered Market, the great vision of the Radcliffe Square, the cobbled streets, the college gardens, the sense of ancient city and country, side by side in Christ Church Meadow.

One view that never fails to shock, however, is the 1960s addition to St Edmund Hall with its height and jagged roofline overshadowing one of the prettiest quadrangles in Oxford. At the planning meeting last year, councillor van Nooijen likened the proposed Westgate to the Teddy Hall building before voting for it.

Whenever I take visitors into Teddy Hall, they invariably ask "Who was responsible for that?

I'm afraid that visitors to Oxford in the future will be looking at Bonn Square and the Westgate and asking the same question.

Nuala Young, Oxford