CAN I add my delight at the decision of Councillor Helen Douglas to quit the Labour Party and join York Conservatives?

Amongst many reasons, she cited her lack of confidence in Labour’s Local Plan and points to the need to “protect communities to retain their identity rather than being engulfed”.

Labour use smoke and mirrors to deceive residents into thinking that they have come up with some kind of compromise in the latest plans, which purport to reduce home-building from 22,000 to 17,000 during the life of the plan. Yet the build period has been reduced to 15 years and the council has completely ignored the views of 4,500 respondents to the initial ‘consultation’.

There is nothing new from Labour, which wants to push ahead with its grandiose plans to morph us into a West Yorkshire metropolitan look-a-like for party ambition rather than for the good of the city.

There are various locations where this is apparent, none more so than in my own ward in Earswick, where they still threaten to leave residents in limbo with the future possibility of a 2,000-home estate to swamp the existing village of 360 homes.

Coun Paul Doughty, Conservative, Strensall ward, City of York Council.