I FEEL your criticism of Sean Feeney challenging Oxford City Council’s core planning strategy is a bit unfair when you base your judgement on the grounds that it will cost the Oxford City Council taxpayers dearly (Oxford Mail, August 6).

Mr Feeney has pointed out that the council has failed to carry out specific duties, a requirement under European environmental legislation, that ‘proposed development’ areas must be assessed for their impact on important wildlife.

If the planners failed to carry out this duty, as can be seen from the accompanying article, Mr Feeney should be congratulated for pointing out this omission instead of being vilified.

The planners should be questioned as to why this important piece of legislation had not been acted upon.

They have had plenty of time to sort through all the options and should have been aware of the impact of large developments on the environment before they had presented their core strategy proposals to the public.

It is pointless that say that: “The Core Strategy contained built-in conditions and safeguards, which means that any development flowing from the Strategy would only be granted approval if further assessments confirmed that it would not harm the integrity of any special area of conservation.”

With a dismal record that reveals that enforcement of conditions are below par and ‘appeals’ by developers are costly, is it not better to sort these matters out now instead of leaving future generations to untangle the mess?

What is worrying is that should Mr Feeney win his case, we will be back to square one and the whole process will start again.

VIM RODRIGO, Rivermead Road, Rose Hill, Oxford