City council leader Bob Price has done it again. Back in January he asserted he didn’t understand why people were “so exercised” about the damage to Port Meadow. You’d think that if the sight of the Castle Mill blocks themselves or the council’s planning review (that found its public consultation had been inadequate) weren’t enough for him, then the publication of the Environmental Impact Assessment surely would. It spells out starkly how the development has had an “adverse impact” on no less than 22 “heritage asset settings”.

But no. In spite of this, Bob Price is telling constituents who write to him that the council’s review “did not find council officers were in error”, and that they shouldn’t listen to “the grapevine”.

He must be talking about the Save Port Meadow Campaign.

Again, you’d think the fact of a massive error being made was self-evident from the contents of the EIA.

Today’s letters

It includes the council’s planning department document where the planning officer comments “it gives rise to some impacts but these are not significant”, having ticked “no” to the boxes that ask a) “is the development proposed for a particularly environmentally sensitive location?”, and b) “Is an EIA therefore required?” If not a spectacular error, what happened there?

The EIA spells out how the minimum mitigation option proposed by Oxford University does virtually nothing, improving things for only two heritage settings. Option 3, taking one floor off, makes an improvement to 16, and is the only option that improves the four worst affected sites.

For Oxford University to be out of touch is one thing. For the leader of the city council to be out of touch is quite another. You’d think Cllr Price would be doing all he can to put things right in light of this blunder, not continuing to dismiss with not small degree of irritation, those trying to hold the council to account. Things have moved on since the Goodstadt Review.

He can’t hide behind it and his procedural niceties anymore. The EIA proves once and for all it was a grave error not to have insisted on doing it in the first place.

Matthew Sherrington East Oxford For the Save Port Meadow Campaign