Sir – We are calling on councillors to revoke planning permission for the University’s reviled development on Roger Dudman Way at Thursday’s special meeting. It’s a complicated case.

The University applied for and received planning application. However, as the applicant, it supplied drawings and photographs that failed to convey the full impact of the proposed development on Port Meadow and view cones into the city. Its planning consultant didn’t contact many of the local residents’ associations that were supposed to be consulted.

Councillors now admit they would not have granted permission for this application had the drawings accurately conveyed what is seen from Port Meadow today.

On the council’s side, the decision not to request an Environmental Impact Assessment remains unfathomable. The mitigation plan appears in tatters. Our campaign has highlighted two issues of great public interest — a wide and profound opposition to the development, compounded by the terrible injustice of having no idea the University had applied for planning permission. This is simply not good enough for an area such as Port Meadow in a city such as Oxford. Over the past week, we have seen hundreds of people supporting our campaign from within the University itself. Its leadership seem to admit they have lost the argument, refusing to debate the issue further, an extraordinary posture for a revered learning institution, with so many employees now openly joining calls for them to lower the height of these detested flats. Special situations call for special measures. We call upon our city councillors to show political courage and sense of fairness and revoke the planning permission. Negotiations can then start in earnest between the University, the city council and Westminster about the best way to tidy up and pay for this terrible mess.

Toby Porter, Campaign to Protect Port Meadow from Oxford University