It's ironic that Caroline Flint, the minister whose department forced councils to flog off their council housing, is now urging Oxfordshire residents to accept a new town for 35,000 people right on the key A34/M40 interchange to get extra affordable housing.

While issuing assurances that it will need to be approved through the planning system, her department is busy preparing binding planning guidance to ensure that it will.

True, it might deliver 5,000 affordable homes in the Green Belt, but there will be a knock-on effect on the delivery of 1,000 new homes in Bicester, and 1,300 homes sought by Kidlington Parish Council, both planned to deliver long-awaited improvements in these more sustainable centres. She also forgets to mention the 5,000 homes planned for Grenoble Road in her calculation of housing need.

The fact that Oxford City Council now backs Weston-Otmoor suggests they don't believe that the town will be self-sufficient in jobs any more than I do, and that it will become yet another overspill for Oxford.

Why live on a road interchange, except for the extra commuting possibilities it offers?

Unfortunately, the A34, already at capacity, won't cope, and businesses and residents in Oxford, Kidlington and Bicester will pay for the extra congestion, as will HGVs using this road artery to Southampton.

There's nothing very eco' about destroying the Green Belt to build a 5,000-space car park (the size of all five park-and-ride sites in Oxford combined) for a rail service to Oxford limited to 400 passengers an hour.

These spaces would be for inbound commuters.

As for the proposal to supply a mix of small shops, that will mean out-commuting for all but basic services. Will they drive to get out? Of course they will! Now's the time to protest.

ANDREW HORNSBY-SMITH The Homestead Kidlington