Sir – Those opposed to the University flats overlooking Port Meadow should not be surprised if the report finds little or no fault with the city council’s role. Large organisations have an inbuilt inability to find faults within themselves.

We in Oxfordshire should know this better than those who live in other parts of the country. One would normally have expected resignations from the county council and police following the scandal of the sexual exploitation of young girls in the city but none have occurred.

So a simple case of planning failure will not be seen as a cause for major concern. This is despite the fact that anyone with the most basic knowledge of the workings of Oxford’s planning department would be able to identify those responsible with a fair degree of accuracy.

The one positive result could be the establishment of an independent panel to consider future major developments but who would form the panel? Oxford’s Civic Society and Oxford Preservation Trust already have pre-application notification and discussions with developers, but their record to date has not been edifying. English Heritage is but a shadow of its former self and is now a dissipate body.

Architects should certainly not be chosen as the former architects’ panels, which were used as a sounding boards in historic cities, refused to criticise the work of other architects.

Perhaps an enhanced pre-application consultation with the public would be a more democratic way. Major developers are already required to carry out some form of consultation but this is often no more a box-ticking exercise and lacks credibility. Some advanced democratic communities already put development proposals to a vote by the electorate. Why not follow this example with the costs falling on the developers.

Paul Hornby, Oxford