Sir – As a business owner and a resident of St Clements I am left speechless once again by the hypocrisy of the authoritarian city council.

The latest edition of their periodic newspaper Your Oxford, seems to be nothing more than a self-congratulatory newsletter telling us all of the wonderful job the council is doing for us.

I refer to the much lauded strapline “Building a world-class city for everyone” and the lead article headlined “Building a bright future for our city”.

How can our councillors possibly attempt to reconcile this on the one hand, when on the other hand they are selling off much-needed public amenities that are inadequate in the first place, such as St Clements car park for yet more student accommodation, with yet further plans to sell off and develop upon, other much-needed city car parking sites. The prolonged closure and reduced capacity of the car parks will have a hugely negative impact on the communities and local economies of the areas concerned when shops, restaurants and other small businesses are forced to close because their customers will not be able to park their cars within a reasonable distance to access them.

The article refers to the creation of 900 jobs and the building of 800 houses. But where will all these additional people park their vehicles should they wish to access any of the shops, restaurants and businesses in these areas where car parks are under threat of development and reduced capacity, assuming that there will still be some businesses trading that is.

At a time of austerity, when the city council is telling us how badly off they are because of cuts to their central budget, is it really necessary for them to waste public money producing and circulating this kind of propaganda.

Alan Grosvenor, Sevenoaks Sound & Vision, Oxford