Sir – On April 6, Oxfordshire County Council resolved to register Warneford Meadow as a Town Green. This follows a long campaign to protect the 18 acres of untended grassland and orchard.

Local resident Paul Deluce applied in December 2006 to register the meadow, on the basis that it had been freely used by local people for recreation for at least 20 years.

The county appointed an eminent expert in Town Green law as an Inspector to advise them. He held an informal public inquiry lasting over three weeks and heard evidence from 30 local residents and from the NHS who own the meadow. In October he delivered his 80-page report which recommended that the land should be registered. We are very pleased by this, and look forward to working with the NHS to make the most of the value of the meadow (including the orchard) for local residents and hospital patients and staff. We are told by some that the NHS locally needs the money to improve health facilities. But the NHS is a national service, and investment in Oxford shouldn’t depend on whether local health trusts happen to have spare land. We are told — and we agree —that Oxford needs more housing, for families and students.

But there are better brown-field sites available that wouldn’t mean denying residents access to open space and contact with nature. Before the county’s decision takes effect, the NHS will consider whether to appeal to the courts. We would be very concerned if they did this.

An appeal would waste more public money and many people’s time, and delay effective planning for the meadow’s future.

The issues were considered very thoroughly by the inspector, leading to his unqualified conclusion that the meadow met the tests for registration. It is unlikely that the courts would overturn the decision.

An appeal would simply be a long-odds bet to try to secure the £10m or more that the NHS hoped to gain by selling the meadow for development.

Sietske Boeles, On behalf of Friends of Warneford Meadow