COMMON sense and now the Government’s own Planning Minister, Nick Boles, say what everyone but Oxford City Council and Oxford University have known from the start.

The University accommodation development at Port Meadow is wrong and they owe the people of Oxford an apology.

The council’s response is to claim to be exonerated by its recent review.

This is in the same spirit as its continued insistence that consultation and procedures were done properly.

What the review actually found were failures in consultation, design assessment and clarity of information. The council failed.

The University’s continued claim to have done nothing wrong is simply disingenuous.

The review showed that their agent made errors in their planning application, failed to take into account the impact of the development on Port Meadow and historic views, as required, and breached the contaminated land planning conditions, not once but twice.

Time to apologise, for the buildings, for their failures and for perpetuating their claims in the face of the obvious truth.

And time to start putting things right. What is it going to take for the council and University to step up to their responsibilities?

NICKY MOERAN, Save Port Meadow Campaign Group, HELEN MARSHALL, Director CPRE Oxfordshire