Sir – Isn’t it astonishing, the zeal with which Oxford is wont to remove trees for any number of reasons. The latest being the two spindly rowan trees in South Street, Osney Island. Ostensibly, they were diseased and posed a safety risk.

Some have said this wasn’t the reasons at all, but rather that it was clearing the view for solar panels on the adjacent council flats.

If we are truly interested in diseased trees causing a public safety hazard, might I suggest to the council that there is a clearly diseased tree (it’s been dead for at least five years) that might well pose a safety risk as it is just a few feet from the Oxford Canal towpath and just beside the concrete box pump station that has relieved, for many years, Jericho’s occasional street flooding.

It is probably 75 feet tall and the trunk is about three feet in diameter.

At this moment there is a tent beneath it on the strip of island between the canal and the Castle Mill stream.

The land is routinely used, with little impact, by the homeless as a camp ground, and who can guess how many pedestrians and cyclists use the towpath on a daily basis.

Is it possible that a little personal injury by falling tree parts and some effort by a good injury lawyer, could result in a large payout from an embarrassed council?

Emmett Schlueter, Jericho