SO the council is to shed 240 jobs (The Press, February 4).

Coun James Alexander states that more than 200 council jobs will go; at the same time, 200 new jobs will be created with the opening of a new Marks & Spencer on the city’s outskirts.

Surely the council jobs to go are more important that those being provided by M&S. With 120 jobs under threat next year and a similar number the following year it, this would mean 750 jobs will have gone in nine years.

Yet again the council has rejected the Government’s council tax freeze grant.

So now the council tax is going to increase by 1.9 per cent. This Labour council needs to take its head out of the sand; how are the people in York going to pay this?

The council should join many others in taking up the Government’s offer of the freeze grant. In this part of York some of us would like to be back in Ryedale. Will this ever happen?

Tom Mitchell, Mendip Close, Huntington, York.