The view of dreaming spires from Port Meadow is not hidden by the new flats, but spoilt by them. One expects a distant view of medieval academia, not a close view of the outskirts of a modern industrial town.

This occurs because the University houses its students no longer in palaces but in industrial sheds. I noted months ago that the experience of walking to Wolvercote on the west side of the river, looking back frequently, is little changed. I have now walked through the middle of the meadow to Wolvercote, as few people do. You only see the new sheds if you look back towards the southern end of the meadow, where they are horribly obvious.

Spires are obscured behind trees at first, the globe on the Radcliffe Observatory occasionally appearing. Opposite the sailing club, the mobile phone mast in Walton Well Road car park can be lined up with the tower of St Barnabas’s Church. All the sheds are to the right of this tower, and it can be seen from a map that all colleges (even Worcester and Nuffield) must be to the left of the tower. Yet they are still hidden behind trees.

Notable university buildings are still perfectly visible from further north, and from Wolvercote, insofar as trees are not in the way. The sheds are to the right of them.

Returning along the riverside path, trees there allow one unexpected glimpse of Tom Tower, but this would not be visible from the meadow even if the sheds were not there. So the new buildings don’t actually hide anything, but a less industrial colour scheme would make them less objectionable, as would careful plantings not too near the buildings.

Roger Moreton Warwick Street Oxford