Sir – It appears from your report (Gazette, December 12) that the plan to build a recycling centre at Greystones, near Chipping Norton, is running into difficulties.

Not only will the centre cost £190,000 to build but there are problems about using a strip of land owned by Chipping Norton Town Council to improve access, which would send the cost rocketing up even more.

This is very unfortunate as Simon Hoare agrees that the north of the area badly needs a recycling facility: a district council survey found that 97.5 per cent of residents were in favour of one.

The obvious solution is to reopen Dean Pit. This was a popular and local facility.

The reasons given for its closure were, on investigation, found to be erroneous. The ‘necessary’ update which, we were told, would cost £1m turned out to refer to Redbridge, not Dean Pit after all; someone had got ‘confused’.

The Environment Agency had not demanded a major update as stated, merely a very minor addition costing a few thousand pounds. They did not want it closed and said they were happy for it to have permanent planning permission.

The district council will say that it was not its decision to make and that it is Oxfordshire County Council’s responsibility.

This is true but if the district council wanted to act in the best interests of its constituents, it could put a powerful argument to the county council.

It would also make a much more reasonable financial case and then Mr Hoare could, in his words, “look the taxpayers of the whole of West Oxfordshire in the eye”.

Glena Chadwick, Enstone Road, Charlbury