Looming over Port Meadow like some dystopian vision of a nightmare future, the grim, warehouse-like blocks of Oxford University’s new student buildings are, alas, all too horribly real and are indeed an outrage. That these hideous barracks must be reduced in height is becoming more obvious every day.
In the light of Oxford University’s transformation of a landmark of truly national importance, it is astonishing that the row has not attracted coverage in the national press.
One contrasts this with, for example, the fuss there was three decades ago over minor expansion plans at a little boatyard on the other side of the meadow. The business’s owner, Brian Crittenden, was transformed into a hate figure, as The Oxford Times’s cuttings file reveals, when all he was doing was trying to make a living.
It is a sad irony that the offending buildings are in a road named to honour the West Oxford Labour councillor and former Lord Mayor Roger Dudman, who died in 1990. He was a man with a notable concern for Oxford’s environment. Nominated by his council colleague Olive Gibbs, he served as a Freeman of Oxford, with a special duty to safeguard Port Meadow’s unique heritage.
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