Sir – Ruskin College’s proposal to sell three fields just to the north of Old Headington, and have them built over, would make nonsense of the city’s recognition of the village as a conservation area.

Accept this, and every other conservation area in Oxford is at risk of losing its green spaces to a greedy eye to the main chance. The city council has a clear duty to preserve conservation areas and to dismiss the college’s plans without more ado.

These fields are the last remnant of meadow pasture south of the ring-road, and are in harmony with the arable land around Elsfield opposite. To build over them would destroy the superb rural views into and out of the area, and the wildlife — some of it rare — that has lived there for centuries.

Any development on Ruskin’s fields would be a grave risk to Stoke Place. It is one of the few remaining rural lanes in the county, and one of the conservation area’s prettiest and most fragile features. Today it is enjoyed by walkers, cyclists and country-lovers, but building two hundred houses beside it would ruin a centuries-old bridleway and deprive it of its essential character.

I hope that the city council will consider the case carefully and side with John Ruskin (rather than the college named after him), and preserve the landscape that has been left to us in trust.

Lyn Robertson, Headington