Sir – It now seems certain that the area committee structure of the city council is to be dismantled, following the decision of the executive board on April 13.

Whatever the merits of this, we should all reflect on the manner of the implementation of this significant change to the system of democracy.

The city council conducted a public consultation for five weeks in February and March; this took the form of a pro-forma questionnaire, with provision for very limited comment (500 characters).

On such an issue as the basis for delivery of democracy in our city, this format was clearly seriously flawed.

The flaws have been compounded, however, by the failure to report any of the results of the consultation anywhere but in appendices to committee papers, and even then to exclude completely any comments contained in the consultation responses.

Furthermore, the published responses to the questionnaire demonstrate that the public decisively rejected the proposals for the abolition of the area committees.

Yet this conclusion is not even discussed or commented upon it is simply ignored, and the proposals are being implemented regardless.

There are many who suspect that the proposals themselves represent a deliberate erosion of democracy; the conduct of the consultation, and the handling of the results have every appearance of underlining this suspicion.

Ironic, when the current buzz-word is ‘localism’, as is Bob Price’s recent comment (April 14) that decisions by the north area committee were ‘over-influenced by local people’.

Peter Thompson, Chairman, Oxford Civic Society