IT’S good to see The Press give some positive feedback on an initiative that City of York Council undertook to renovate King’s Square (The Press November 28).

For quite a few months, residents and local traders have criticised the work that was being undertaken. I too was bewildered and initially concerned regarding the work, but it is good to see the end result.

I do hope the complainers will now admit that they were looking through a narrow lens, and realise that in future they should inspect the plans and look at the artists impression as to what the final result will be.

While it is important that people should be allowed their democratic right to complain about things they do not agree with, to me there seems no point at all in complaining about things that they have not looked into or researched, and so yet again I reiterate my request to city councillors and council officers to ensure that information and consultation is widely available and not to rely only on online consultation.

Congratulations are due to staff at City of York Council for innovative planning and forward thinking.

H F Perry, St James Place, Dringhouses, York.

 

• THERE are two groups guaranteed to support the King’s Square “Milton Keynes downgrade” – the ever-spending Labour cabinet that borrowed and spent another £500,000 of our taxes, and the surrounding businesses that will get free outside seating areas, with no upkeep required.

Yet in The Press of November 28, you succeeded in speaking to only those groups.

I am disappointed by this, but not as much as by Sir Ron Cooke, the chairman of Reinvigorate York. How did this body get established anyway?

This is what happens when boards sit behind closed doors with one carefully selected luminary to give citizens the impression that all will be fine.

Whoever replaces Labour in 2015 must get back to decent open local democracy.

Many changes need to be made to bring York back to fair and open democracy.

Gwen Swinburn, Park Grove, York.

 

• ON SEPTEMBER 26, a Soap Box letter from Darren Richardson, the director of city and environmental services, boldly declared: “Cobbles will stay”.

Utter cobblers! Exactly 32 yards of dual granite slabs and cobblestone setts have vanished.

The original 1976 cart track gently curved from Colliergate’s kerbside to join the Shambles and Newgate Market. Now it stops abruptly – an incongruous eyesore!

Earlier brave Michelle Wyatt launched her “Save the cobbles” petition from her wheelchair. We now await her figures from our listening council.

Your photograph above the letters of November 27, again featuring Michelle, with the headline posing the question: “Is all this really an improvement?”

Previously the council floated a policy to ban all A-frame advertising boards, defined as ‘obstructions’. It met with huge resistance and was dropped.

However, the Chocolate Story now go one further by parking their enormous logo-laden tricycle on the new paving. Furthermore, I guarantee during next year’s first sunny spell, these chocolatiers will plonk their tables and chairs on the newly laid walkway thereby impeding pedestrians.

Labour bankrolled this £490,000 vanity project, which Reinvigorate York declared a “world-class space”. Oh really...

Geoffrey Widdows East Mount Road, York.

 

• I WAS dismayed at seeing the unveiling of the paving stones in King’s Square. It is sheer vandalism to replace historical stones for bland pavement.

And where is the plaque that informed us all about Christ Church which once stood on that site?

What really annoys me about that is because it has taken me 30 years to write my science fiction thriller book EARTHZOO which features historical York as one of its settings.

It is about to become published yet how can my potential readers wander around York experiencing the plot when the council has demolished most of the scenes?

Someone informed me (jokingly?) they are now contemplating replacing York Minster with council flats!

Phil Shepherdson, Chantry Close, Woodthorpe, York.

 

• I BELIEVE the £500,000 being spent on resurfacing King’s Square to be a total waste of taxpayers’ money which has taken away the charm and character of this historical area.

Terry Smith, Fourth Avenue, York.