WEDNESDay 18 fEbruary 2015 • SuPPLEMENT (2) TO NO 5086 • VOL 145 Gazette Supplement Voting on a Resolution relating to Castle Mill The following is the text of the debate in anti-loquitor device; the lights will change that, I would be grateful if you could do so by Congregation at 2pm on 10 february on a from green to amber once four minutes have 9am tomorrow morning, as this will help in resolution relating to Castle Mill. elapsed; the amber light will then remain preparing the text for the Gazette. on for a further minute, after which it will THE VICE-CHaNCELLOr: The business The following is the text of the resolution: be replaced by the red light, at which point before Congregation is voting on a ‘Congregation welcomes the conclusions speakers should conclude their remarks; resolution relating to Castle Mill. Would you of the Environmental Impact assessment, otherwise I will have to interrupt and ask please all be seated? resolves that of the three options that it speakers to bring their remarks to an end. offers for mitigation of the environmental The resolution which comprises the at the end of the debate, I shall give revd damage caused by the Castle Mill business of today's meeting was placed on Professor Diarmaid MacCulloch the right of development, Option 3 is the only one that the agenda of this meeting in the university reply to the debate. offers substantial mitigation, and therefore Gazette, first published on 15 January. instructs Council to proceed with mitigation I shall then take a division on the resolution. The procedure for today's meeting will work according to the recommendations This will be by paper ballot, for which be as follows. I shall begin by reading of Option 3.’ I now call on revd Professor members of Congregation should have the resolution. I shall then invite revd Diarmaid MacCulloch to move the received voting papers as they entered Professor Diarmaid MacCulloch to move resolution. the theatre. any members who have not the resolution and Professor Jane Caplan to received papers will have the opportunity to The Revd Professor Diarmaid second it. I shall next invite Professor Sally collect a paper at the exits as they leave. MacCulloch, Faculty of Theology and Mapstone, followed by Professor Ewan Religion, Fellow of St Cross McKendrick, to speak on behalf of Council. under the Congregation regulations a vote The mover of the resolution has been asked can only be taken at the close of the debate, Diarmaid MacCulloch, St Cross College. Mr to speak for no more than eight minutes and and I regret that any members who cannot Vice-Chancellor, colleagues: all of us here the seconder to speak for no more than five stay until I call the vote will therefore not be can start from some shared assumptions. minutes. It is intended that today's meeting able to vote. This means that a member may We can all welcome a clear finding from the will end no later than 4.30pm. not leave a completed voting paper with Environmental Impact assessment on the another member: the Proctors, Pro-Proctors buildings put up over the last two years at a number of members of Congregation and bedels who will be collecting the papers Castle Mill for graduate accommodation. have indicated a wish to speak, and I will at the close of the debate will accept only The assessment concludes that they were endeavour to call them all, but I cannot each member's single, personal voting badly designed, and are an aesthetic disaster. guarantee that I will do so. Priority will paper. I shall explain the detailed voting be given to those who have indicated in None of us can be proud that this is so. arrangements when the vote is to be taken. advance that they wish to speak. additional It is very sad for the conscientious and speakers should rise from their seats to The stenographer who is helping us to competent officials of theu niversity, indicate their wish to speak; and I would ask transcribe today's proceedings is entitled to who were charged with carrying out a that they speak only if they have new points a break during the meeting. Therefore, if the bad building brief, and I think we must to add which have not already been raised meeting is still in progress at approximately all feel sympathy for them. Nevertheless, by other speakers. Speakers are also asked to 3.30pm, I shall call for a five-minute break. it is welcome that the assessment has so confine their remarks to the themes relevant unambiguously described the damage. Now a transcript of the meeting will appear as to the resolution. we are charged with finding the best remedy a Gazette supplement as soon as possible. for what has gone wrong. That is our focus Please could speakers come forward and The intention is to publish it in the Gazette today: not so much how or why things went speak into the microphone, first giving their of 19 february. It will also appear on wrong, but what to do next. name and college or department. Speakers the university website. Speakers have are asked to follow the usual convention of previously been asked to email copies of also common ground is that we wish to act not speaking for more than five minutes. their speeches to the Congregation email on the Environmental Impact assessment. Positioned to the side of the lectern is the address. If any speaker has not already done The disagreement is between minimum 359 360 University of Oxford Gazette • Supplement (2) to No 5086 • 18 february 2015 action and action which will actually and most economically; and indeed, it may a householder that has been compromised. achieve something. The opponents of be that the City Council would insist on a but the Castle Mill flats have degraded the motion, following Council, have phased implementation of Option 3. We the landscape and a cityscape that are the unambiguously opted for Option 1, the can make sure that no student on a current common property of this entire city and proponents Option 3. The clarity is good: let occupancy of Castle Mill has to move the whole country. That is why we object to us not discuss Option 2. Mr Vice-Chancellor, before the agreed term of that occupancy is them in their present form. you have said in your recent open letter that complete. a word now on the allegedly deterrent effect the EIa, I quote: ‘concludes that the best another part of the fear narrative from our on donors. Let me just remind you that the option is to carry out additional landscaping opponents is to do with donors. Donors, our donor knife cuts both ways. Let me cite a and exterior work to help the buildings opponents say, will not give to a university signatory to the 2013 petition, objecting to blend in more.’ In other words, you claim which adopts Option 3. Well, I wonder the development: ‘I’m shocked by this. I will that it recommends Option 1. whether donors will give to a university write to my old college… and if I find out that That claim is only possible by selecting that behaves in a cavalier fashion towards any of its fellows were involved I will cancel particular phrases from the EIa, rather as its ethical obligations or to its neighbours. my endowments and change the (currently publicity agents construct blurbs for the There has been at least one occasion in favourable) terms of my will.’ you know who back covers of thrillers. No, the EIa gives us Oxford that a donor only gave on condition you are. three options available for choice. Option 1 that a particularly obnoxious building by Other alumni are reaching the same achieves nothing significant. It does not a distinguished architect was partially conclusion and are refusing to make any affect the single most deplorable feature of demolished. a creative appeal might well further donations until this wrong has been the Castle Mill buildings: they are simply indeed find a donor who relished the role of righted. Now, it is true that big donors give too high, by at least one storey – among being the saviour of Port Meadow in funding in millions of pounds, but surely we must their other violations of the skyline, they a version of Option 3. also weigh in the value of the multiple breach the convention observed in recent This is going to be an adversarial occasion. connections that bind alumni to their development on respecting the treeline Opponents on both sides may say hurtful university? around the meadow. Their height disfigures things to each other; that is the nature of an ancient landscape of international I now speak about the planning balance. The debate. The motion which I seek to move is significance; literally from miles away. university administration has made much intended to carry us to a new, more creative, Nothing which does not alter that is of any of the claim that the public benefits of the more generous phase in this business: use. In other words, it is the opponents development outweigh the harms that it where we use our collective wits to undo of the motion who are being deeply has generated in terms of planning policy. the tangle in which we find ourselves, on irresponsible by wanting the university The planning dimensions of this case are the basis of an agreement to remove the to spend a great deal of money achieving as serious as its financial implications.