Oxfordshire County Council is proposing to close and sell Cogges Manor Farm (Oxford Mail, November 27).

I urge all readers who care about the historic environment, about education at all levels and the delight of present and future generations, to fight this short-sighted and penny-pinching proposal.

The council was once far-sighted and cared about Oxfordshire and its history.

Its acquisition of Cogges in the 1970s created a unique resource for learning and enjoyment.

It is a site of great antiquity, with buildings of all periods from medieval to modern, domestic and agricultural and a working farm so that today's children can connect with rural life in a close and meaningful way.

Closure would throw away all this, including the investment of public funds, for simplistic, short-term reasons.

I take students there regularly to study the buildings, and closure would significantly damage opportunities to learn from the remarkably intact interior showing how the house developed from the 17th century.

A sale, inevitably to a property developer, would result in house building on the surrounding green spaces and conversion of the great barns into houses - a desecration of these remarkable spaces, totally inappropriate and a permanent loss of their character.

The house - it has no bathroom or toilets and the kitchen is Victorian - would lose its character when converted for modern living.

A private owner would be unlikely to allow visitors and such evidence of its past which remained would be inaccessible.

We and future generations would be the losers.

Please write to your county councillor to keep Cogges open, and turn up next Wednesday to make your views known.

DAVID CLARK Walton Street Oxford