Sir – Is it not time that both the Oxfordshire county and the Oxford city councils conducted a thorough, impartial survey of the costs, as well as the benefits, of Oxford Brookes’ University’s presence in the city? It could start by looking at the projected huge expansion of the Gipsy Lane site which current amendments leave largely unchanged in terms of overall scope and ‘massing’ and potentialities for congestion and noise pollution.

Just who will gain from this expansion? And just how will the various communities of the parts of Oxford most affected by Brookes cope with the ensuing costs of more sight pollution, the various harmful effects of the night club, the increased multi-occupancy of local buildings, more parking mayhem and other sundry items? What, too, about the aesthetic effects of the creation of yet more huge eyesores in Oxford?

All are costs. And are the costs not now far exceeding any ‘benefits’ Brookes may bring to the local economy?

Some key socio-economic questions can be asked. Is it better, for example, for Cowley Road to have even more bars and cafes than a few more genuinely local shops?

What is the critical mass of student houses in an area before it passes from being a local neighbourhood to a student quarter?

How can East and North East Oxford deal with even more traffic? And, as a recent highly perceptive Private Eye article indicates, how many new buildings in the area are actually good to look at?

I suspect that these questions should also be put to both the present (and the future?) governments.

They should recognise that blindly expanding universities, no matter what the size of the towns they inhabit, is now causing communities to fight back.

Oxford is considerably smaller than the Manchester conurbation, which is where the current Brookes vice-chancellor was able to admire a spanking new giant building that was actually well thought-out. It is interesting to look at, it is appropriately located and it does not help to destroy local neighbourhoods.

Ken Lovesy Oxford