Sir - John Greaves, a letting agent, wrote (February 29) saying that commercial use of the buildings at Upper Heyford was a 'common sense option'.

On March 7, you reported the 'pressure' from the South East England Development Agency on Cherwell District Council to approve the NOC planning application which includes the proposal to turn the airfield and its 56 Hardened Aircraft Shelters into a business park for storage and distribution. This week, March 14, the answer might be in the leader 'The Bod and the bad' and news of the Bodleian's £5m vision for its Broad Street building.

The former airbase is said by English Heritage to represent the best preserved Cold War remains in the country and, as such, it is difficult to imagine what commercial use could be allowed to be made of the runways and buildings. NOC have appealed against the failure of CDC to determine its application.

As the application does not include any public access or use of what English Heritage hoped would be the first 'Cold War heritage park' nor provide the enabling fund required by the relevant Structure Plan policy, the application should not receive favourable consideration from the Secretary of State. However, NOC has told us that the Bodleian had not yet replied to its question as to whether it wanted any space at Upper Heyford, the extent of which would solve the library's storage problems for ever.

However, low key storage could be allowed and, were NOC to comply with planning policies at national and local level, instead of seeking to maximise the financial returns from what was until 2006 public property, the saga could be brought to a satisfactory conclusion.

Daniel Scharf, Oxford Trust for Contemporary History Drayton, Abingdon