Letters: What Benedict XVI did for Catholicism

Oxford’s Big Brother

Sir: Your Oxfordshire council correspondent (Letters, 7 January), who refers to himself as the corporate director of environment and place, refutes Rod Liddle’s description of councillors as ‘dictators’ and his criticism of the way Oxford will be divided into zones to reduce traffic. Bill Cotton’s letter put me in mind of Nineteen Eighty-Four. The sectors, the checkpoints, the control of access, the difficulties in just trying to go about your business, the paperwork.

Ah, the paperwork! Cotton’s letter mentions residents’ applications for permits – at cost – to drive through the ‘filters’ for 100 days or 25 times a year for county visitors. How will people keep track of these? Blue badge holders, some frequent hospital visitors and health workers will be ‘eligible’ to drive through the checkpoints. Authenticating and issuing these alone will be a huge task.

The checkpoints will be ANPR cameras, manned by hosts of ‘guards’ watching every car’s number plate in some building somewhere, checking if they have the correct ‘papers’ or permits.