Sir – Everyone who made it to the carnival in South Park on Sunday must have enjoyed the impressive displays of creativity and music that produced such a great parade.

But what a shame it can’t be appreciated in its original street setting.

The atmosphere of Cowley Road just doesn’t translate into an open park setting, and the size of the crowd bears this out.

Whereas parading up Cowley Road to a cheering audience used to take a whole hour, most of the time in the park consisted of processing down the hill with a few scattered onlookers — the crowd awaiting at the bottom was passed in about ten minutes flat.

Plenty of people say they like the event in the park and it’s certainly a good day out, but it’s not the Cowley Road Carnival, so please let’s not call it that until the real thing can be resumed.

Giles Strother, Oxford