Sir —You recently reported that Five Mile Drive Recreation Ground had been shortlisted in Oxford City Council’s search for new cemetery space.

On Monday, July 25, the following petition signed by over 500 residents of North Ward was submitted to the council: The undersigned call on Oxford City Council to preserve and enhance the Five Mile Drive Recreation Ground as a public open space and sports facility, and not to convert it into cemetery space. Almost every family living north of Sunderland Avenue between Woodstock and Banbury Roads supported this petition. In the football season there would have been many more signatures, because the proposal would deprive Summertown Stars AFC of two public pitches used on Saturdays and Sundays by seven of their teams of boys and girls aged 7-18.

With childhood and adult obesity a growing concern, the Youth Service suffering cuts and Britain hosting the Olympics in 2012 it is extraordinary that the conversion of a small, well-used urban park and sports ground into a cemetery is even being contemplated.

Towards the end of the 19th century, the city corporation established several new cemeteries around the edge of Oxford, well outside the built-up area.

These have lasted for over 100 years but they will all be full within ten years or so. The council should follow precedent and establish one or more new cemeteries beyond the city boundary.

To use any of the remaining open spaces within the urban area is absolutely the wrong choice and would simply destroy precious community assets forever without solving the problem.

Richard Lawrence-Wilson, Resident and petition organiser, Oxford