Sir – The new Jericho health centre in Walton Street has raised controversy, but I would like to add comments as a local resident and member of Jericho Watch.

The three-storey building will house the health centre on the ground floor, other stuff on the upper floors.

On the positive side one has to commend the opening up of the view of the Observatory — world-class building — but the reverse view ends in the recycling area, before being totally blocked by the extension to the primary school.

But to the health centre itself: this is a public building intended for service to the community. So why then is it hidden behind the old garden wall, itself over a storey in height: has the wall been canonised by some higher authority?

When the site was a car park, the wall was welcome, but not now — because it will blight the lives of the persons working on the ground floor, whose environment will be the grot-slot.

The wall occupies a lot of footprint that could better be used: and lastly, because it prevents direct access to the building from Walton Street: the way it is now it seems more like a health centre to which people are taken for interrogation.

Next, the crinkly-crankly walls, are supposed to ‘reflect the plot widths of the terraced houses’. Will that be understood?: I think not.

Next, the roof profile is bizarre, up one end, down the other. And the windows apparently are all different, for no logical reason. There is nothing wrong with modern, austere and well detailed buildings: see the Ashmolean and the recent work at St John’s. In the real world, complicated = expensive: the funders of this project should beware.

Simon Norris, Architect, Hinksey Hill