Sir – Over the last 15 years I have watched Oxford City Council frustrate Oxford colleges over their planning desires and Oxford residents and special interest groups frustrate just about every planning application that is lodged.
I have been to Oxford Inspire meetings and Oxford is a unique environment and a world class university which is just not cutting the mustard as it should in the 21st century.
What Oxford needs is a strategic and inspired masterplan whose objective is to make Oxford the world’s premier university, the world’s leading centre for research, and a thriving commercial scientific centre. It would not be difficult but would require employing architects and town planners with vision and foresight who could produce a 21st-century masterplan that would alleviate the huge negativity that surrounds the development of the city.
A shopping mall is not critical to a city with Internet purchases increasing year-on-year against shop sales. World-class research centres and commercialisation of the results means huge income and job creation.
New areas would have to be developed in an inspired way with new transport connections and tourists should be charged to visit the city because the fabric is taking more wear and tear than ever before.
We are not talking about converting a disused brewery into an arts centre, we are talking about a comprehensive 20-year development of the city of Oxford and its environs.
If Oxford continues down its current path it will slowly drop down the rankings and the city will become like Piccadilly Circus – tacky, full of tourists and fast-food outlets and become a caricature of its former self.
The opportunity exists to transform the city into one of the most exciting working environments in the world with the seductive partners of history and real modernism.
Simon Henson
Hailey, nr Witney
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