For so many years Oxford’s castle site was a bleak quarter of the city, and not just because of the Victorian prison.

Now after the arrival of a unique hotel and heritage centre, we are promised a major new attraction in the shadow of the Castle Mound.

The Magnet will be the UK’s first integrated Science Discovery and Innovation Centre.

Not only does it promise to be a major visitor draw, Science Oxford, the charity behind it is determined that it will show the huge contribution Oxfordshire companies and individuals have — and most importantly — continue to make to science and the country’s wealth.

There will be galleries and a spectacular planetarium to inspire up to 30,000 local schoolchildren a year — and if that were not quite enough, it will be home to up to 50 innovative local companies.

We are told over ten years it will generate £160m, with £128m of that boosting the local economy. Few will weep to see that ugly 1960s structure Macclesfield House being demolished to make way.

But news that the city’s register office could have to go too will unsettle some, for W.A. Daft’s building on the corner of Tidmarsh Lane is one of the precious few structures in that area still to admire.

Given how much the architects Foster and Partners hope to fit on this oddly-shaped site, it is going to come down to whether the worthiness of the register office really outweighs the potential benefits of this remarkable scheme.

With a planning application soon to go in, the scheme will surely be able to rely on the support of both universities and the county’s wider business and science community. Yet the listing of the century-old register office could prove quite a challenge, even for architects whose previous projects include the German Reichstag in Berlin, the world’s largest airport terminal at Beijing and the Millau Viaduct in France. Welcome to Oxford Baron Foster.