OXFORD City Council’s west area planning committee has shown depressing spinelessness in accepting Oxford University’s inadequate mitigation plan for the aesthetically dismal (and view-spoiling) Castle Mill student flats next to Port Meadow.

They are approached via a road named after former Lord Mayor the late Roger Dudman – would he, or his surviving family, want to be remembered for these heritage-spoiling monstrosities? I fancy not. I suggest that Mr Dudman’s name be retrieved for use in a less ignoble location, and that this road be renamed Carbuncle Alley, to commemorate the flats’ second prize in 2014 in the annual Carbuncle Cup for the country’s worst buildings.

Prince Charles kicked things off in 1984 by complaining that an extension planned for the National Gallery would be a ‘monstrous carbuncle on the face of a much-loved and elegant friend’ – and bad architecture is now highlighted every year by this competition.

In the same way that the tower and spire next to the bypass roundabout at North Hinksey became widely known sarcastically as ‘Botley Cathedral’ in the 1960s, a samizdat renaming is possible even if the council won’t play ball.

If we always call this road Carbuncle Alley whenever it needs discussing, the official name will die of disuse, and the university’s insult to Oxford will be recalled every time the road is mentioned.

ANTHONY CHEKE
Hurst Street, Oxford