Sir – I live at the lower end of Cheney Lane and I have noticed a complete disappearance of owls from the neighbourhood.

When I moved in here, 40 years ago, owls roosted in the nearby trees and did so until recently. Quite clearly there has been an ecological disaster. Owls, as you know, feed off mice, voles, insects and rats.

Their disappearance indicates that an ecological disaster has taken place in Cheney Lane.

The wildlife population has vanished and is certainly not enough to support owls. It has now become apparent that the bee population is vanishing. This must have resulted from the management of the land: locally by Brookes University, the city council and local landowners.

It seems that the Parks Department and their counterparts at Brookes University have rejected the lessons learnt from Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring. What is needed is the restoration of the wildlife habitat which seems to have been completely obliterated.

There are whole areas of South Park which could be left to go wild without any loss of amenity.

The land management should be refocused so as to encourage biodiversity. The parks and gardens are quite large enough to support a large and varied wildlife.

Charles O.M. Judd, Headington