Sir – You reported a fresh triumph for the forces of negation and joylessness which now occupy the commanding heights of local Government (Report, June 16).

This time it is dogs and their owners who are the victims of officialdom’s animus towards individual freedom and anything which adds to the sum total of human happiness. A new decree has been prepared which bans dogs from certain areas, threatens anyone who is accompanied by four dogs with arbitrary fines, and empowers ‘council officers’ to ‘order people to keep their dogs on leads’.

Henceforward, a carefree dog walk will be a hazardous enterprise.

Dogs and their companions will have to proceed hesitantly, always on the lookout for a concealed jack-in-office waiting to leap out from the undergrowth to hector them, or demand money with menaces. Perhaps these enforcers will copy their prototype Dick Turpin and range the parks and towpaths of Oxford on horseback?

How was this spiteful edict conceived? It was the upshot of a ‘consultation’ that yielded overwhelming support for this policy of command and coerce. How many people were consulted? How were they chosen and what questions were they asked?

More pertinently, why are the enemies of fun so confident that elected councillors will endorse their efforts to curtail it?

Lawrence James, Eynsham