Sir – I hesitate to invade your columns with regularity, but the report on Oxford Brookes intention to employ its police support officers (February 4) to ensure responsible behaviour of its students left me with a real sense of déjà vu. During my time as chairman of the planning committee in the early 1990s, the problems of the growth of Oxford Brookes caused concerns for local residents. The solution of the university was to employ a Community Liaison Officer, which had about as much effect as trying to drain the Thames with a colander. The real problem is the huge growth of a second university in a small city.

Oxford Brookes continues to grow to fuel the bureaucracy that runs it.

Virtually anybody who applies can gain a place there. I taught A-levels for 12 years. I confronted one of the least gifted and least applied students I taught, about his exam chances, predicting he would do disastrously. That prediction was completely accurate.

He did not seem in the least concerned and told me that he had been given an unconditional offer of a place at Oxford Brookes. The nettle must be grasped. Growth should be stopped, and a planned pattern of student number reduction be effected.

If not the problems will get worse, and the university will continue to put forward hollow palliatives as evidenced by their latest wheeze of their own police support officers.

John Power, Oxford