Sir - I feel I must alert readers to the astonishing news that Oxfordshire County Council is proposing to close Cogges Manor Farm Museum in Witney.

Cogges Museum is a fantastic resource which we, in Witney, are lucky to have right on our doorstep. Closure of the museum would be a tragedy.

The importance of the preservation of, and public access to, the historic manor house with its fantastic walled garden goes without saying. But more important than that, in my view, is the benefit which the farm and its animals have for children. As a mother of one (aged two years), I have first-hand experience of the delight which the museum's animals bring to children, especially very young children. Cogges gives them affordable, immediate, and often very frequent, access to a range of different animals which they love. The animals, such as Damson and Rodney (the pigs, by the way), become the children's friends. They look forward to seeing them.

Through the wonderful things which the staff at Cogges do, children get a chance to experience a wide range of things such as milking cows and the birth of new life (the piglets and the calves to name but two examples).

If this is taken away from them, they will have no option but to grow up unaware of seasonal diversity, thinking milk comes from cartons, and knowing many animals simply as pictures in books. Given Witney's increasing urbanisation, it will be become more difficult for local children to gain such regular first-hand experience of animals. To the executive of the county council I would say: please do not close this wonderful facility: the children of Witney and West Oxfordshire will be so much the poorer for it.

Alice Millea, Witney