Sir - I accept that maintaining the city's play areas is expensive and that some may be of poor quality and underused. Those proposed for closure are apparently close to larger spaces scheduled for improvement (e.g. £240,000 at Wood Farm).

I have two concerns. First, we need all the open spaces we've got.

Even if no longer equipped as play spaces, with benches and a tree they will still be valued.

Second, I worry that refurbishment will be no more than an extension and upgrade of existing mass produced identikit equipment - novel for a moment but fundamentally boring.

When I visit my grandchildren in East Berlin, we have a choice of nine playgrounds within a 3-15 minute stroll - if we want more variety we walk a little further. In each the hand of the artist and educator is present. Each one is identifiable by a theme (the jungle, the dragon, the ship, the spillikins) or a particular activity.

Wood, stone, rope, and quarry-loads of sand are used, the latter a perfect medium to promote educational and social play. Of course, there is conventional equipment too but mostly the spaces encourage children to explore and examine the not always obvious possibilities in their own way. One of the newest and most innovative is tiny by the way, hence my concern about the lost potential of the spaces scheduled for closure.

We need a new vision of what a play area can be and we desperately need planners to put children and young people first. Anyone wanting to see what can be achieved in the UK when there is the imagination and the will should visit www.playlink.org.uk I'm certain we can do better in Oxford.

Caroline Roaf, Oxford