I write to thank you for two anti-resident and pro-Oxford City Council editorials in the Oxford Mail.

Firstly, I was criticised for appealing to the High Court against the Oxford Core Strategy, based on the protection the Habitats and Species Directive gives to the Oxford Meadows Special Area of Conservation (Saturday, August 6).

Secondly, a residents’ Town Green application was condemned as “utterly unacceptable” (Wednesday, August 10).

Like other SACs, the Oxford Meadows are “special” and deemed so worthy of conservation that plans or projects that might possibly affect them cannot lawfully be approved.

The meadows are designated as a “possibly unique in the world” habitat. Port Meadow is almost the last site in England where the “critically endangered” creeping marshwort species still grows.

They preserve a once common, but species-rich, English landscape, as it was before intensive farming.

Unlike the developments you cherish, the meadows are irreplaceable.

You have attacked residents for the lawful exercise of their rights; you have sided with a council whose fairness and legality many residents no longer believe in.

Freedom of expression, like other legal rights, is a right the public share with the press.

No longer will I tell residents your reporting of the enormous changes planned in the Core Strategy is inadequate, in future I will simply show them your candid editorials. So thanks for that!

SEAN FEENEY Victoria Road Oxford