Sir – Colin Cohen is right to be outraged (Letters, September 3) by Oxford University’s plans for the redevelopment of the major Radcliffe Infirmary site.

The proposals for the listed out-patients’ building being considered at the same time as those for the new Somerville building featured in your edition of August 27 are equally objectionable (English Heritage objected to both). Amended proposals have been submitted which tone down the designs slightly, but they remain totally unsympathetic to the surrounding listed buildings. It is particularly distressing that the worst features of these designs (the towers shown in your article and an atrium in the out-patients building) appear to be architectural conceits which have no essential function.

If these proposals are the best that the University can offer, then the prospects for this very sensitive site on the edge of the historic centre of the city are indeed grim.

The offer of a narrow and unattractive route running between high buildings across the site to provide a link between Walton Street and Woodstock Road should not be allowed to outweigh the major objections to the design of the proposals.

It was with disbelief that I read of councillor Cook’s apparent support of anything which Oxford University might propose. There are plenty of examples in the city such as the University’s disastrous development of the Little Clarendon Street/Wellington Square area (which includes the Vice-Chancellor’s office!) which show that the University cannot be trusted to build sensitively.

The city’s planners have advised that councillors should approve the plans in principle, leaving officers to try to improve the details. However, it is wishful thinking to expect the University to improve the design once the proposals have approval.

In any case, final decisions on important sites such as this should be taken by councillors in public not by planners in private.

Margaret Booth, Oxford