Sir – Once the city council has had its fingers rapped for granting consent for the flats over looking Port Meadow, a means must be found for reducing their prominence in the landscape. The narrow strip of land now allocated for tree planting will not allow for effective screening and it will be decades before maturity. A more effective and immediate response will be to paint the western and northern elevations to blend in with the existing tree cover to the east.
The present raw nature of the housing  with bright finishes I find offensive and I am sure the University would be able to afford a quick paint job, after all they are the main winners in this dispute and will reap handsome rental income from the development.
A. Watson, Oxford