Sir – I wonder how many Oxford citizens realise that a public consulation is supposed to be taking place on the very important matter of how the city council is run.

We are told that the present arrangement is that of a “weak leader”. From my experience of Bob Price this is far from the case. The options being presented to us in the “public consultation” are “the strong leader” or an elected mayor.

The strong leader would be able to choose and dismiss at will his/her executive body and so have absolute control.

The administration is not pointing out very clearly that there is in fact a third option. The first two were presented by the last Labour government, but the new government would also allow us to reject the first two options in favour of retaining our present committee system.

The “strong leader” model is yet another step away from a representative democracy and very worrying, but this is the option the present city administration is pushing.

I hope people in Oxford will search the city website and find this elusive public consultation and let our executive committee know, before it’s too late, that we don’t want to invest total power in one person, elected by only one city ward.

The executive committee will be discussing this on October 18. If people have missed the deadline of the so-called public consultation they can e-mail all councillors on councillorsallmembers@oxford.gov.uk and let them know which option they support.

I’m afraid that those without e-mail will find it difficult, as is ever more the case, of being informed and making their voice heard.

Nuala Young, Iffley