Sir – Chris Buratta’s story (January 20) is spot on. To close half the waste centres in Oxfordshire and then insist that mixed waste can only be taken to Kidlington is plain daft. There will always be some limited unrecyclable waste.

I fully support a brand new recycling centre at Kidlington, able to recycle extra items such as paint, mattresses and electrical equipment. But this should not be at the expense of closing the popular Redbridge centre in Oxford.

The county council are trying to transfer £750,000 a year of their costs to the district councils. There will be no saving to the taxpayer or to residents who will be forced to drive much further. Densely populated Oxford would be the the only district in the county without its own recycling centre. This is just not acceptable.

The Kidlington centre is due to open in April 2012 and the county plan to keep Redbridge open to the public until then. So I call on councillor Ian Hudspeth to think again and keep all the centres, including Redbridge, Dean Pit, Stanford and Ardley, open. If we can significantly raise recycling rates at all the centres, the county should be making money. They are already offering to pay the districts to handle the extra bulky waste. Better still to keep Redbridge open, not just to trade, but to the wider public.

John Tanner, Board Member for a Cleaner, Greener Oxford, Oxford