THE university and Oxford City Council were sadly mistaken if they thought the Castle Mill saga was on its last legs.

The university is – unsurprisingly – keen to take the cheapest mitigation option being proposed but the Campaign to Protect Rural England has today laid down a marker it wants to see the height of the offending buildings come down.

And it has said it may go back to court if Oxford City Council does not insist on this course of action.

This is the sequel to the scandously bungled handling of the original planning application by the council and, frankly, not a surprise.

The council riled a lot of people over Castle Mill and it seems, by the way it tried to avoid answering fairly basic questions over its powers, it has yet to really get how much scrutiny it is under.

The council and university no doubt would like this latest chapter on Castle Mill to cruise through untroubled, but that is not going to happen.

The CPRE is back on a war footing and the council now knows it cannot afford to bungle a second time.