There will be many who will welcome the news that the responsibility for planning policy in Oxford is no longer with the city councillor who oversaw the disastrous decision to allow the university to build the Port Meadow flats.

Lest anyone forgets, this is the development that Planning Minister Nick Boles described as “one of the worst examples I’ve seen ... it’s like the Maze Prison” and “something for which both the council and university should be deeply ashamed and apologise”.

But it is hardly reassuring that the man who is now to take over the city’s planning brief, Cllr Bob Price, is the individual who responded to Mr Boles’s criticism, not with the humility that the minister felt was required for such a terrible planning mistake, but with the statement to the media “It’s difficult to see precisely what is getting people so exercised.”

We can only hope that Mr Price has since reflected on his extraordinarily insensitive dismissal of so many people’s concerns, that he now intends to work hard to ensure that meaningful mitigation is put in place at Port Meadow and that in future he shows greater respect – and better practical support – for Oxford’s precious heritage.

Nicky Moeran, On behalf of the Save Port Meadow Campaign

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