Sir – Professor Audrey Mullender, the Principal of Ruskin College, has every reason to say “We should be focusing on the thousands who have nowhere to live” in Oxford (Letters, June 16).

City council figures on housing needs and homelessness in Oxford are stark:

1: 5,900 households on the council’s housing waiting lists

2: Over 190 households living in temporary accommodation

3: Over 170 people living in hostels

4: Half of homeless people are under 25

5: Over 6,000 over-crowded households

6: Of 713 lettings made to social housing in 2009/10 only 155 were for homes with three or more bedrooms.

In short, Oxford is a housing disaster, most particularly for the least well-off, which is why Oxford City Council’s proposal (Report, June 16) to extend key worker homes to staff from Oxford’s two universities is a very real cause for concern.

Regrettable, too, that Tesco now has the go-ahead to open an Express store on the site of the Friar pub, New Marston (Report, June 16), a site which could and should have been used for a small but vital number of affordable dwellings.

That Ruskin feels able to sell some of its meadow land in Old Headington for the provision of low-cost housing is all of a piece with this college’s exemplary commitment to equal opportunity, educational, social, and cultural, and should be welcomed by us all.

Bruce Ross-Smith, Headington