Sir – Having perused the Vale of White Horse report into their vision for Abbey Meadow, I find it astonishing that the council could envisage spending 15 per cent (ie £75,000) of the allocated budget on professional fees.

So that now reduces the ‘improvement pot’ to £425,000, less with the project manager’s salary of £20,000, leaving just £405,000 in total for actual hardware.

If I’ve read this correctly there surely must be a better way to ensure that the projected budget of £500,000 is spent on the project and not on consultants.

Have council officers/councillors not thought of involving local area expertise to administer this proposed scheme at lower cost?

Timothy J. Oates
FOAMOP
St Peter’s Road
Abingdon