Sir –West Oxfordshire District Council has passed its 2015-2031 Local Plan, which will now go for public examination by a Government inspector.

WODC is adamant that this plan is evidence-based.

This is despite 12 of its councillors speaking out within the debate against the plan’s unsoundness by including the flawed north Witney site within the plan – a site inextricably linked with the promotion of the proposed West End link road.

We are, therefore, astonished that councillor Warwick Robinson who, as the council’s portfolio holder for strategic planning and lead cabinet councillor for delivering this plan, is quoted in your edition of March 4 as saying “I also believe there are a lot of people who live in West End who will be overjoyed to find they don’t have a permanent line of traffic outside their doors”.

The evidence is, in fact, completely the opposite, according to Oxfordshire County Council’s Highways Traffic Modelling Forecast prepared for the Government-rejected Cogges Link Road project (another intransigent lost cause supported by WODC).

OCC’s Highways statistics clearly show that upgrading the Shores Green junction (which is to be quite rightly built first) reduces traffic in West End; but then adding the West End Link road (integral to attempting to  make north Witney deliverable) increases traffic in West End by an unacceptable 52.5%. (Tables 3.7 & 3.9 HTMF Report).

This will make West End traffic levels greater than at any time in its history.

We have presented this OCC evidence to WODC again and again since the beginning of public consultation, showing that North Witney/WEL does not stand the scrutiny of soundness, viability and deliverability that the Government inspector will be looking for.

This statement from the council’s strategic policy holder sums up, in one sentence, its flawed analysis for maintaining the inclusion of North Witney/WEL in its plan.

Stuart Harrison, North Witney Action Group