Toby Porter replies to Oxford University over Castle Mill flats

‘As a local resident who has walked almost daily on Port Meadow for the last 30 years, I cannot stress how depressing I find these latest developments. As I turn to leave Burgess Field each day with my dog, my heart sinks when they come into view.”

This comment was left by Leonora Pitt, one of thousands of Oxford residents to sign the Save Port Meadow petition, and reflects the emotions still felt by the unheralded arrival of Oxford University’s eight brutal Port Meadow blocks.

Writing in this column last week, Professor William James told us that we local people need jobs, houses, good local services. But as Leonora’s comment shows, we value our beautiful spaces too.

The university’s retrospective environmental impact assessment takes us all into uncharted territory.

It confirms the buildings caused “substantial” adverse harm to four “high value” heritage landscape assets of local and national importance. It sets out three different options to reduce that harm.

The first option, which the University favours, changes only the facade of the buildings.

The Save Port Meadow campaign, and almost all of our supporters who have expressed a view, favour option three, which additionally reduces the height of the buildings to the level of the treeline, restoring the cherished views of our city’s skyline and of the Grade I-listed St Barnabas Church tower. The cost for the first option is billed as £6m, and for option three, £12m.

But the EIA has another important revelation — the removal of the top storey in question would only lose the university 38 rooms. The loss of these 38 rooms, Professor James would want you believe, would precipitate a crisis for our local economy and housing market.

Don’t be fooled by Professor James and the university’s line about 300 bed spaces. It is a feeble argument, because the university always had permission for 240 rooms at Castle Mill, but critically in much lower buildings. Those 240 rooms would have had a positive impact on our housing market and on the university, but only have caused “slight” harm to Port Meadow. That would surely have been an acceptable trade-off.

The university should elect and pay for the best option that undoes the most harm to Port Meadow because it is its own failings that put it in this situation.

First, and most seriously, the university designed bad buildings out of keeping with the setting. We know they paid five times more to the architects for the design of the prestige Blavatnik building on Walton Street (£2.2m) than to the designer of the eight unsightly blocks at Port Meadow (£420k) Second, the university’s planning application was full of errors.

Third, the university failed in its duty to consult with the public.

Fourth, the university resolutely ignored the early outcry, forfeiting the chance to fix the problem far more cheaply than the options it faces today.

Lesson number one for the university — if there is a city whose residents would tolerate a decision to place 38 student rooms ahead of their enjoyment of the “jewel in the city’s crown” without any public consultation, it is not Oxford.

Retrospective as it may be, the EIA confirm an obvious truth — these buildings would never have been approved or built had the damage they cause been accurately represented to the public and to councillors in the first place.

Granted, £12m is a lot of money, but it is still a tiny fraction of the £3bn target for the university’s capital appeal. It is surely a small price to pay to put right Oxford’s unique and magical Port Meadow for the enjoyment of Leonora and thousands like her.

Thirty-eight rooms, Professor James, is nowhere near worth the ruin the university has inflicted on Port Meadow. You’ll be congratulated for listening, and for doing the right thing.

Toby Porter is a founder member of the Save Port Meadow Campaign, and a member of Oxford University.