Sir – The Home Bursar at Exeter College is misleading when he imputes petty time-wasting as a motive for my having ‘called in’ the siting of the Gormley statue on the Blackwell’s building on Broad Street (Letters, March 19).

I am sorry the college feel that they have been unfairly penalised. I called in the application after being lobbied by local people who felt that such a major installation, affecting the public realm, ought to be debated in a public meeting.

This is how local democracy works. Like it or not, Oxford University is subject to the same planning system vagaries as every other body or individual who applies to alter the public realm in some way.

As for the accusation of my ‘not bothering’ to turn up at the meeting where this was debated, I was unwell and gave my apologies with this explanation in the normal way.

In any event, having publicly declared that I liked the statue on the building would have been enough to exclude me from the debate, as in planning terms it indicates prior bias.

Perhaps if the decision had been made to refuse the application, and had then been called in for debate, the same democracy would appear to Exeter College’s Home Bursar in a more favourable light.

Sushila Dhall, Green Party, Oxford City Council, Oxfordshire County Council