Sir – As more and more ill-conceived and badly-designed buildings threaten the landscape of Oxford city, I look back with nostalgia to the work of Ebenezer Howard, who believed a close bond with nature is essential to human well-being.

He invited Raymond Unwin, architect and author of town planning and practice, to develop Letchworth and so the concept of the garden city was born.

Here in Oxford, there is a want of gardens and green public spaces which visitors and those who work here might use. No elements of nature are factored in to the spaces where construction goes ahead.

Space and the harmony and presence of nature are essential to the human condition and the university colleges exemplify this in their balance between buildings, trees, gardens and meadows. Much could be learned from their example.

Rather than being antediluvian, the past often holds the seeds of a better future.

Katrina Warren, Oxford