Sir – In an informal discussion at the Rose Hill, Cowley and Littlemore Labour Party Branch it was pointed out that the higher fees for students — £9,000 a year — will be likely to make the less well off young people of Oxford even less likely to contemplate going to either university in our own city.

All the “you don’t pay back till you are earning a lot” didn’t wash as a mitigation. I must stress that this is in no way official Labour policy, but does it not seem grotesque that one of the most historic and world-acclaimed centres of study for young people should now begin to be even less connected to the young who actually live here than perhaps at any time since the Second World War? Again, and unofficially, it was thought that Oxford University — and Brookes — might allocate special places, or “Oxford scholarships”, to the less well off in our own city, so that in exchange for providing an infrastructure of streets, transport, waste disposal, security and much else, the city in which these prestigious institutions are based might actually benefit the young who actually live here.

Town and Gown is an archaism that should have disappeared long ago. Oxford university places for the Oxford young makes good sense — also saving travel and accommodation costs for would-be students.

Ian Flintoff, Chairman, Rose Hill, Cowley and Littlemore Labour Party Branch