Wellington Square Gardens in Oxford have long been a mid-city haven for students, shopkeepers, residents, business people and university employees.

Since the city centre ban on drinking has driven street alcoholics from the main shopping streets, a small group of drinkers took to congregating there during the mornings.

This group was quiet, although messy, but never disturbed me or my five-year-old, who loved coming to the garden to play hide and seek.

Like most local residents, we have a small garden and there is almost no local public space to play in.

But in its wisdom, Oxford University has taken the heavy-handed step of turning the whole garden into a huge black cage with a permanently locked gate.

The black railings stand out as one approaches, far more than the trees and shrubbery within.

The drinkers, all six of them, will move to other places -- local residential streets, for example.

But for myself and my daughter, without warning or consultation, we have lost a unique and precious resource.

For us, as for the hundreds of other law-abiding users of the garden, there is nowhere else to go. Was there really no other way of tackling the problem?

SUSHILA DHALL

Walton Crescent

Jericho

Oxford