I read with interest the article (Oxford Mail, February 11) on the city council selling off some of its properties to raise cash.

I am unaware of, and cannot comment on, many of the properties listed, but was very pleased some weeks ago to see a ‘sold’ sign outside the flats in Ashhurst Way, Rose Hill.

The flats have been a blot on the landscape for far too long and it will be good to see them being brought back into use providing homes for people.

They have a reported market value of nearly half a million pounds.

Across The Oval from these flats stands the community centre, the hub of the Rose Hill community.

This has been sadly neglected by the city council for years and it shows.

Only recently, Antonia Bance, one of our ward councillors, admitted the council had failed to keep the centre in good order.

At the same time the council has been investing heavily in community centres and leisure centres elsewhere in the city.

As a result of a recent consultation of residents, a large proportion of the S106 developer money arising from the large-scale redevelopment of Rose Hill will be spent on upgrading and improving the community centre.

With the sale of the flats, the council has a golden opportunity to make good its failings of past years and invest in, at the very least, exterior repairs to the centre.

How about it councillors? Give some of the money raised from the sale of the flats back to the local community.

A council that can throw millions of pounds at a pool in Blackbird Leys, which a large proportion of the population have democratically shown they do not want – and which will be inaccessible to many and only serve the privileged minority – can surely give us a few grand.

Peter Wilkinson, Thames View Road, Rose Hill, Oxford