Sir, It is with dismay and disbelief that we learn of the proposal to extend housing in Horspath on to fields in the Green Belt presently in agricultural use.

Over recent years, Shotover has been exploited by those who seem bent on creating a park out of the priceless nature reserve that has won the title of 'The Lungs of Oxford'. So much of Shotover has been robbed of the natural properties that made it a sanctuary for wildlife.

Building expansion in Horspath will cause artificial light and noise pollution to disturb the little wildlife left.

It will also increase the number of visitors to the detriment of wildlife. The buffer zone of Green Belt between Horspath and Shotover must be preserved.

Without birds and wildlife, Shotover will cease to maintain its ecology, the control of undergrowth and seed dispersal depends on the right balance of nature and wildlife.

Without the help of wildlife, expensive manpower will be needed to maintain a park of that size. Something that an urbanite such as John Prescott, whose policies lack any consideration for both environmental and traditional town planning values, fails to understand.

He simply doesn't understand that areas like Shotover are the priceless inheritance of the free, which all governments owe to society to preserve. It is vital that the benefits that Shotover provides for the population of Oxford are preserved for present and future generations.

The attack that the spreading of Horspath presents to Shotover would have horrified a conservationist such as Dr A.B. Emden (a principal of St Edmund Hall) whose efforts to preserve Shotover for posterity are remembered years after his death. We shudder to think what John Prescott will leave future generations to remember him by!

Alba and Eddie Thorning, Oxford