Sir – So the administrative Council of Oxford University is to resist calls by its own Congregation for the institution to recognise that the Castle Mill development has caused substantive harm, and to raise its sights from the tokenistic fig leaf of Option 1 (cladding and tree planting) to the more genuine reparation attempt of Option 3 (reduced height of key structures).

Council’s rationale for opposing these calls is that ‘for economic and social reasons anything more than the minimum required to achieve a measure of environmental improvements would have a disproportionate effect and should not be pursued’.

‘Measure’ is a key word in this sentence. It shows that the University’s obduracy cannot be explained by their believing that Option 1 is adequate, or even close to proportionate to the environmental impact.

Rather, it is evidence that they believe it acceptable to place financial gain above adherence to environmental regulation. This ‘we are above the law’ attitude can only further damage an already tarnished reputation. One is also bound to ask whether they have weighed into the balance the reputational and economic advantages of a genuine offer of reparation.

In any event, the University’s strategy assumes local authority planning processes can lawfully deliver the de minimis mitigation measures of Option 1. They cannot. In so far as the ES factored in fiscal considerations at all, in its artificially restricted review of various options, it strayed into territory outwith the ambit of the EIA Regulations and, therefore made the conclusions legally flawed.

In that context, the University is actually in a position where the popular clamour for Option 3 actually represents something of a compromise; one which the University might, in the future, wish it had taken if it chooses now to pursue tokenistic measures that will be unsatisfactory to all parties.

Dominic Woodfield, Oxford