One disturbing aspect of the removal of the Thameside willows on Osney Island is the clear view this has afforded of the mean and ugly hovels that formerly lay hidden behind them. (Another, of course, is the thrilling arrogance and contempt for local opinion with which the Liberal Democrat city council has gone about their destruction - but I'll get to that presently.) These unappealing artisans' dwellings seriously impair the visual amenity of an otherwise pretty stretch of river, with their garish colour schemes, displeasing variety and woebegone air of Coronation Street about them. The people that live in them like them; but they, of course, are looking out from them, not at them.

In their looking out, one realises, they naturally valued their view of the trees. According to an Osney Islander called Chris - who rang Bill Heine's Radio Oxford show to talk about it - some valued them literally. Attempting to wring our withers over the trees' likely felling, he said residents might suffer a serious decline in the value of their houses when the willows had gone. The acerbic Mr Heine failed, for once, to give the obvious sarcastic response that an innocent passer-by, crushed beneath a toppled tree, would be a small price to pay to maintain Osney's buoyant house market.

Except, of course, that this is a cheap and invalid argument. If a tree were to have fallen, the people most at risk would have been the residents of East Street. When coming to a view about the state of the willows I would sooner believe the local people than Oxford City Council. The former insisted that seven out of the 11 diseased trees were safe, and were happy to let their children picnic and play beneath them; the latter, with the tidy minds of bureaucrats everywhere, were determined that the whole matter be settled at the stroke of a pen and ordered the felling of all of them.

Angry at this decision, a neighbour of mine - did I forget to mention I live in Osney? - wrote to ask Alan Armitage (the city and county councillor with an important say in the matter) why neither authority seemed capable of listening to what people actually want? The reply was instructive. Armitage said: "'What people actually want' is not relevant in such a case. Nobody consults about fighting fires, closing unsafe bridges or knocking down crumbling buildings. I and the council officers are under a duty in law to protect the safety of the public . . . We could well be arraigned in a criminal court and imprisoned if we failed to take action and a tree fell on somebody or even a car or house. OK - we know what he means. It could not be clearer where our obligations lie."

In reply, my neighbour told Armitage: "If you follow your argument about public safety, then you should be taking down half the trees in the city. Any tree, given exceptional weather conditions, can be blown over or have limbs ripped off. I would have thought that there was a need to balance public safety with the principles of a conservation area."

At this point I had perhaps better explain - despite what I was saying earlier about the grim, jerry-built houses - that we are an area bound by the strictest planning controls. Amazingly, Osney is not just a conservation area, but one covered by an Article Four direction which imposes even stricter rules about what can and can't be done in the improvement of properties. This absurdity was pushed through with the enthusiastic backing of the local residents' association, whose members then went on to 'police' this persecution by planners (except when they didn't). Friends of mine have been ordered to replace a whole roof because their tiles don't look quite right, others to remove or alter skylights.

My Osney neighbour told Armitage: "I am not allowed to place a conservation grade Velux window in my roof facing Bridge Street because it is a 'conservation area'. The Fire Officer (who after all is an expert) is fully in favour of such windows because they offer the quickest escape for anyone trapped in a burning building. On this issue the needs of a 'conservation area' take precedence over public safety issues. When you as a council are consistent, then perhaps we as your constituents might have more respect for some of the actions taken, after advice from experts."

The council, I understand, is anxious to maintain Osney's special status, after an investigation that has infuriated and offended Osney Islanders in equal measure. Except that it provides something for their officers to be bossy about (which they love), I fail to see why they should wish to maintain this oppressive regime. After all, they don't care a fig about the look of the place, on the evidence of what they have done with the trees and what they will shortly be doing over rubbish collection. This conservation area will soon be smelling like a rubbish tip all through the summer as a consequence of the insane decision to collect our household waste fortnightly instead of weekly. Those of us with gardens are being equipped with huge plastic wheelie bins; others with plastic collection bags a fetching shade of purple.

You know, these Liberal Democrats are neither liberal nor democratic. Moreover, they are seriously bad for the environment.