A NEW book on Oxford buildings claims university colleges have not done enough to save the city’s main shopping area from disastrous development.

With 50 years experience as a working architect, John Melvin casts his expert eye over the city in his book The Stones of Oxford.

And he does not like much of what he sees.

Mr Melvin, who lives in Chipping Norton, says he has come to regard himself as “an entranced outsider” when it comes to Oxford.

But even his affection for the city has been put to the test in recent years with “infantile and banal architecture” that – he says – makes even Slough look a more attractive proposition for shoppers.

He says: “Unless planners engage and recognise that they must upgrade the commercial centre, people will vote with their feet and not come to Oxford. Not long ago a BBC poll voted Cornmarket the second worst shopping street in the country.

“If we compare the street today with the Cornmarket of 100 years ago, we can see the source of the aesthetic failure. The engagingly detailed shop front has been superseded by the ubiquitous plate glass.”

The fact that the city council and university colleges own much of the land in the city centre means that they must share much of the blame, he insists.

He says: “What colleges have done for college buildings is admirable. But they must exercise the same care for other buildings. They must not simply leave it to surveyors. It is in the colleges’ own long term interest to make Oxford’s commercial centre as attractive as possible.

He reckons “the tragedy of the post-war generation” is that large developments in Cornmarket have undermined the original scale and rhythm of the street.

But the Clarendon Centre provokes most contempt. “We enter a sanitised and infantilised world, divorced from sensory stimulation or imaginative engagements except that provided by the anodyne chain store,” he writes.

Despite all the damage inflicted and missed opportunities, the future need not necessarily be bleak, argues Mr Melvin.

There are buildings of outstanding architectural merit at both ends of Cornmarket, the Golden Cross represents “an intriguing enclave” and there will be opportunity for redevelopment.

He can surely count himself as an architect who practices what he preaches. He became involved in the restoration of the 260-year-old Holywell Music Room in Oxford’s Holywell Street, where both Handel and Haydn appeared. Many view the concert hall as the most important chamber music concert hall outside London. The idea of the book came as he took Alexandra Papadakis, owner of the architectural book firm Papadakis, around the venue.

When Mr Melvin was working on the hall he became aware of the divergence of opinion in Oxford on something as simple as railings. For him, the suburban houses of North Oxford have still to recover from the loss they suffered by the removal of their railings in the Second World War.

The Stones of Oxford: Conjectures on a Cockleshell by John Melvin is published by Papadakis (£25).