Sir – County council leader Ian Hudspeth expressed surprise at the Connecting Oxfordshire event in Witney last week when the clerk of Carterton Town Council stated that 80 per cent of Carterton residents out-commuted.
And yet West Oxfordshire District Council is still proposing 2,450 new homes should be built by 2029 in the Carterton sub-area, including 700 on the ill-named Carterton East site.
Increasing the population (and therefore the number of cars) is hardly going to meet Mr Hudspeth’s target of reducing traffic on the A40 by 15 per cent.
We would all like to see greater employment opportunities in Carterton in order to reduce out-commuting, but it simply isn’t going to happen.
Witness the abject failure of the so-called West Oxfordshire Retail Park. Where are the retailers?
Perhaps Mr Hudspeth’s idea of a unitary council (Gazette, July 9) might create more joined-up thinking and ensure that new houses in Oxfordshire are built nearer to where the jobs are.
West Oxfordshire District Council’s plan only compounds existing problems.
Keith Beckingham, Manor Road, Brize Norton
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