Sir – We, the signatories of this letter, have had the privilege and responsibility of representing the whole city, both town and gown to the city and the wider world.

It is as Lord Mayors past and present, and as Sheriffs who have a special responsibility for Port Meadow, that we now write to you and your readers about the emerging five-storey blocks of student accommodation: their impact on the historic site of Port Meadow is already causing widespread public dismay.

We acknowledge the need for more graduate student accommodation and we welcome the University of Oxford’s determination to meet this need. We accept that planning permission for this development was sought and obtained a year ago. However, we cannot persuade ourselves that the buildings now still rising, and their growing impact on the setting of Port Meadow, were foreseen. On the contrary, we believe that without any evil intent, there has been a massive collective failure properly to anticipate and visualise the outcome.

The immediate priority is to make sure that the present and further impending damage to the setting of Port Meadow is not carried through to completion, as the current planning permission would allow. We welcome, therefore, last week’s decision of the city council’s planning committee to open negotiations with the University to find ways of preserving the traditional setting of Port Meadow by reducing the size and impact of the planned accommodation.

The purpose of our letter is to appeal to the University and the city council to make these negotiations not a talking shop but a spur to action that safeguards the true and long-term interests of all of us. Failure so to act would do lasting damage not only to the setting of Port Meadow but to the reputation of Oxford as a civilised place that values and safeguards its heritage. Public concern will ensure that the progress and outcome of these negotiations will be subject to the scrutiny of all those, local and world-wide, who love this city. As Lord Mayors, with some successful experience of calling for the best for Oxford’s future, we felt unable to remain silent at this time.

John Goddard, Alan Armitage, Elise Benjamin, Jim Campbell, Mary Clarkson