Sir The city council has been asked to explain why it wants to increase traffic to Oxford, but it stays silent. It seems that our councillors cannot find justifications for their policy on Westgate that they feel can stand the light of day.

Expanding Oxford's commercial centre by nearly a third will need the support of something like 20,000 more shopping visits daily. The citizens of Oxford have not voted for this. Labour and the Lib Dems have no mandate for this.

We who live in Oxford do not want our centre to be more crowded, transport in the city even more congested, and our air even more polluted. Why do our councillors prioritise the interests of Capital Shopping Centres plc above the needs of the people of Oxford? The city claims to have some interest in the environment: it is appointing a climate change officer. When this officer is appointed, perhaps he or she can explain to the councillors that encouraging many extra thousands of people to drive long distances to shop in Oxford, every day, will substantially increase greenhouse gases, when we should be making every effort to reduce them. Our new officer can point out to the council that the roads to Oxford are already congested, that the county will not be able to improve the A40 until 2011 at the earliest, and that adding thousands more cars to these roads is not a good idea.

In the world we are moving into, it is of the greatest importance that we reduce the number of food-miles and the number of traffic-miles for everything we buy. To protect the environment we should encourage people to shop as close to home as is possible.

The council's policy of setting out to attract new shoppers to drive here from many miles away belongs in the past. We need better policies to protect our future, and we need them now.

Michel Treisman, Oxford