Sir – In his otherwise full reply to letters about library closures, Keith Mitchell ducked the rather central question I put to him: will he reverse at least most of the closures when the deficit-related cuts taper off — or does he really want to be rid of libraries irrespective of the cuts?

He writes that stopping road improvements, including the £2.5 upgrade of the Iffley Road, “will fill [the £2m library] funding gap for a while, but not for long”.

Surely, however, it is exactly in “a while” that something close to normal expenditure can be resumed, when the Government has achieved its radical reduction of the deficit, which it is committed to do by the end of this Parliament, ie four years hence? Or is he bent on a permanent reduction of services?

Keith Mitchell did not claim that a transfer of funding from roads to libraries was legally barred, but Rodney Rose, his cabinet member for transport, did so in his own letter, though without suggesting any regret at an obstacle to common prudence in face of acute financial stringency.

Has the county asked for an end to the bar (or at least a suspension) from a government, which has, after all, declared its opposition to such centralised controls?

I might add that Rodney Rose was wide of the mark in presuming I am not as aware of the state of Iffley Road as motorists. As a cyclist who rides along it nearly every day, I know every bump and cavity. Personally I would benefit from an upgrade, but I believe on objective grounds that splashing out on an upgrade has a lower priority than keeping libraries open.

Edmund Gray, Iffley