30mph enforcement needed

6:50am Thursday 8th January 2009

Sir – Ted Dewan and Lady Grimley-Evans (Letters, January 1) dismiss Paul Wooldridge’s questions with blithe assertions and disregard NL Gregory’s fears about cars doing 20mph (December 11). Back in October, I cited DfT data that suggests an Oxford-wide 20 mph limit would scarcely reduce casualties and could worsen emissions.

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Make city attractive

6:50am Thursday 8th January 2009

Sir – Councillor Fooks (Letters, December 25) suggests that I have made the ‘…astonishing assertion that whereas waste collection systems are constrained by cost issues, the Transform Oxford proposals are not’.

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Homeless ‘tourism’

6:50am Thursday 8th January 2009

Sir – Regarding so-called homeless ‘tourism’ and Oxford City Council’s Reconnection campaign to banish rough sleepers who cannot demonstrate a personal connection with the city: surely a vital distinction needs to be drawn between beggars who endlessly hassle the public, and the harmless homeless who mind their own business and cause no trouble.

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Heart of the community

6:50am Thursday 8th January 2009

Sir – Many pubs in the city of Oxford are threatened by closure, or have recently been lost. The Marston Road area has been hard hit — The Plasterers Arms has been replaced by flats, The Somerset has been turned into a restaurant and cocktail bar and The Friar, now subject of a planning application to demolish and replace with a Tesco store, has been closed and dark for two years.

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Cliché-ridden twaddle

6:50am Thursday 8th January 2009

Sir – Yes, of course one man’s meat etc . . . but I am bemused by Damon Smith’s glowing review of the film Australia in the Weekend section (December 25).

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Lost varieties

6:50am Thursday 8th January 2009

Sir – I was pleased to see that apples were included in Helen Peacocke’s ABC of Oxfordshire in the latest Oxfordshire Limited Edition. May I make a few corrections and additions? Helen Peacocke rightly gives credit to the Eynsham grower, F W Wastie, who propagated apples between 1920 and 1940. However, she attributes to him some which were already established in the 19th century. Hanwell Souring and Pheasant’s Eye are both culinary varieties, mentioned in Robert Hogg’s Fruit Manual of 1884.

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Hypocritical behaviour

6:50am Thursday 8th January 2009

Sir – Joseph Westrick (Letters, December 31) and many others seem to think that scientists are fiends who want to experiment on animals. This isn’t true.

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Save great picture

6:50am Thursday 8th January 2009

Sir – There is only a month to save Turner’s great elegaic picture of Pope’s Villa at Twickenham from export.

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Who comes first?

7:00am Thursday 8th January 2009

Sir – Are our hospitals set up to serve the patients first, or the doctors and staff?

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Transport links

7:00am Thursday 8th January 2009

Sir – The RAF Transport Command Veterans Association is being formed with the view to putting old mates and colleagues back in touch, and having meetings and reunions and producing an association magazine.

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