Sir – I would like to apologise to my neighbours in St Leonard’s Road and St Andrew’s School. Ten years of lobbying to improve street safety have come to nought and I’m admitting defeat. I’ve decided to go to a better place.

I thought the duty of our elected representatives and public offices was to serve and protect. Obviously not.

An elderly lady was run over by a HGV in nearby Stile Road last year but it didn’t make any difference. The county council has been resistant to a weight restriction, or indeed any kind of meaningful traffic changes.

There’s a remarkably different attitude to residents’ parking. Your readers may remember that it was roundly rejected here, but the opportunity to impose this stealth tax was too good to miss.

The point was illustrated last week when I returned to discover my hedge had been butchered and the foliage dumped in the garden — evidently to clear space for the parking permit sign. The council had snapped into action with ruthless efficiency lest anyone escape a parking fine.

I felt like my home had been violated, and I’m surprised by the level of anger and distress it caused, but perhaps it’s the result of a decade of frustration at dealing with such warped priorities.

I’ve abandoned all hope for the democratic process in the face of such a malevolent, dysfunctional, self-serving council regime that demonstrably cares more about safeguarding its dubious revenue streams than ensuring road safety. There’s nothing further I can do that’s legal.

I genuinely and sincerely hope my prophecy is wrong but I think it inevitable that a child will be killed by a skip lorry tanking down this road. I’m just relieved that I won’t be here to witness it. I pity the poor parents and neighbours who will.

Dave Gilbert, Headington