Sir – St Hilda’s withdrawal from the Travis Perkins site in East Oxford (Report, January 12) potentially allows for a serious rethink of how the site should be used.

For decades, small and medium business have closed within Oxford and been replaced by housing, thus effectively creating increased commuting.

Jobs are exported to ‘business parks’ and industrial estates (or destroyed), while the housing, too expensive for most locals, sucks in people from outside (fleeing London?) who then have to commute to distant places of work.

At the same time, local councils try to restrict car use and get everyone walking and cycling!

When are they going to learn that if you want to cut energy use and time wasted travelling, you have to have jobs near houses, and if you want to house the waiting list you need lots of social housing not fancy upmarket bijou residences.

Although already happening, this trend was exacerbated by Thatcher effectively banning new council housing in the 1980s.

Since council housing is now once again permitted, an enterprising and socially responsible council would compulsorily purchase the site and build council houses and space to recreate local businesses and workshops. It would be a fabulous opportunity to create a model low-energy estate (solar power, high insulation etc.) with on-site jobs which would shame private developers into emulating it.

Do we have any politicians with the vision to promote such ideas? Where is a real 1945-style Labour Party when you need it — gone, it seems, to the dustbin of history, together with the ideals that inspired it.

Anthony Cheke, Oxford