I WONDER if all of the citizens of Oxford are aware that Oxford City Council no longer sends information about planning applications to neighbouring residents.

All that it does is to pin a small yellow notice on the fence, with the barest details, the application number and the address on the internet.

As everyone knows, the proportion of elderly people is rising, and those in wheelchairs, or walking with one or two sticks, may find it difficult to stand on the pavement and take down this information.

Someone who has acquired this information can then, if they have a computer and a printer, print out the details of the application, and consider the implications.

But suppose that they are elderly, or handicapped or not well enough off to own a computer?

Then they can visit the planning department in St Aldate’s – only to find that all that is on offer is seeing the details on one of their screens.

The whole procedure is paperless, and there is no facility for printing out copies, even for someone prepared to pay. But everyone who deals with any complex documents knows that you need paper copies in order to consider the issues in detail.

In other words, it is all up to the individual citizen, and the council offers only the most minimal information, and none at all which is actually sent, as it used to be, to neighbouring properties.

Precisely because the population is rising rapidly, as is the pressure of large-scale institutional developments, the council has a duty to provide information to its citizens.

The planning disaster at Castle Mill is not likely to be the only example of a development, large or small, which goes through without proper consultation and information.

Professor SIR FERGUS MILLAR Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies Walton Street Oxford