Sir – Making alterations to a listed building without consent is an offence punishable by fine or imprisonment.
The enormous bronze lump, ‘around three metres high’, which has been set up on the forecourt of the Ashmolean Museum (listed grade I) as (according to your report) ‘a permanent memorial’ to Professor Michael Sullivan, has not been the subject of a listed building application. It is up to the city council to take action.
The council is not, however, well placed to do this at the moment, having installed ugly new doors outside the original doors of the former library at the Town Hall (grade II*).
Not only does this, of course, belong to the council, but it is opposite the planning office. It is said that these doors were fitted to act as fire doors when events are held at the Town Hall, and the intention is that they should be taken down after each event, but they seem now to be permanent fixtures. Who at the council will take action against whom? It is not the first time that unauthorised work has been carried out at the Town Hall.
A few years ago some stained glass was put into the window of the Lord Mayor’s Parlour: a retrospective application for listed building consent had to be made. How can the council expect others to obey the law, if it does not do so itself?
Peter Howell, Oxford
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