Sir – Mark Barrington-Ward is stuck in an ancient paradigm, I fear: (Letters, June 30). Mark calls Sunderland Avenue an example of sprawl, a favoured pejorative for housing the expanding population along roads.

The idea was strong among some 1930s drivers, who hated the new housing spoiling ‘their’ country view, as they bowled along the nation’s arteries.

The idea was so persuasive that we had Green Belts, then tower blocks which were central to Corbusier’s car-centric world, as well as guidance to locate new housing in enclaves, walled-away from the arterial roads. But we now know that these enclaves are difficult to walk or cycle away from, and all but impossible to run decent bus services to. The idea has led to England having more people driving, for most of their journeys, than in European countries without this approach.

Development along main routes (not motorways) is most likely to support business and retail, public transport and for residents, a sense of being in a desirable place rather than segregated in an estate.

The idea of reducing the barrier of the A40 is extremely important for the thousands of people who will live in the proposed housing at Barton.

Mark is right to doubt the effectiveness of the current proposals to reduce speed to enable convenient crossings, which need to go further, eg two islands or more, narrowed carriageways, adjacent developments visible through the trees and human activity.

Hiding the new areas behind hedges and trees puts them out of sight, out of mind and in many cases, isolated. There is ample space and the intention to have hedges and trees in the new area, which can only ever ‘be sustainable’ if it is well connected to the city.

Graham Paul Smith, Oxford