YOU must realise that the supposed public consultation on the “revamp” of Abingdon is a total farce.

Its only purpose is to tick some regulatory box somewhere to confirm that the scheme has involved the local populace in its discussions.

The fact is that unless you have a degree in Middle English, or maybe Esperanto, you will be very hard put to understand what the Draft Development Plan is on about. If you have not tried to read its 60+ pages here is a list (by no means exhaustive) of the kind of jargon it contains which renders large parts of the thing quite opaque – intentionally so I expect.

“issues arising from different methodologies” ?

“a number of Key desire lines” ?

“convenience goods offer” ?

“retail offer” ?

“fine urban grain with vertical rhythm” ?

“horizontality” ?

“pedestrian legibility” ?

“comparison retail” ?

“large floorplate use” ? etc... etc... etc...

What happened to “transparency”? Where is the “ongoing linguistic familiarity compatible with indigenous comprehensibility”, i.e. Plain English?

And P.S. Who thinks we need a large new “Food anchor” (supermarket!) in Abingdon centre? Answer... almost nobody.

ALAN BOURNE, Steventon Road, Drayton, Abingdon