Sir – In his letter (June 25), Professor Tom Burns, psychiatrist and non-executive director of the Mental Health Care Trust, stated that the patients of Warneford Hospital don’t need green spaces such as Warneford Meadow. This is wrong.

Shortly after Oxfordshire County Council voted to register Warneford Meadow as a town green, staff from his own Trust wrote to Friends of Warneford Meadow to discuss therapeutic activities on the meadow. FOWM has also been contacted by former patients expressing their concern at the loss of the meadow.

Therapeutic activities such as weekly health walks, supported by the city, county council and the Primary Care Trust, are scheduled to start in August and we also hope to develop activities for the residents of the adjacent nursing home.

Such therapeutic use of Warneford Meadow is in keeping with the campaign from Mind, the national charity for mental health, which calls for a new green agenda for mental health following growing evidence in support of ecotherapy which is an accessible, cost-effective and natural addition to existing treatment options.

One of the recommendations made in Mind’s recent report: Ecotherapy and the Agenda for Mental Health, is that “All health, social care and criminal justice institutions should be required to ensure access to green spaces”.

We are all aware of the pleasure and subsequent health benefits of taking a walk and engaging in the myriad of leisure activities that natural green spaces, such as Warneford Meadow, provide.

Also the need sometimes for a place to find sanctuary away from it all at times of personal difficulties and distress.

I urge the Trust to acknowledge this and work with patients, staff, Friends of Warneford Meadow and other local community groups to preserve the meadow in perpetuity. It’s simply the right thing to do.

Paul Deluce, Town Green applicant, Warneford Meadow, Oxford