RECENTLY in The Press there have been many letters deploring the Lendal Bridge closure, the Coppergate partial closure to private vehicles, road closures during the Tour de Yorkshire this spring and Tour de France last year.

I am a motorist myself but do not think that because I paid a few thousand for a car and pay a tax every year for it that I have a God-given right to use it on any road at any time.

I remember similar protests when the road around the Minster was closed to cars and also Stonegate. Now we realise how beneficial to our lovely city these road closures have been. Compare the pleasure of walking down Stonegate to trying to negotiate Coppergate.

Our city did not evolve around the motor car, it is Medieval. Please let’s try and enhance the beauty of York even if it means reducing car use within it.

Words from the Joni Mitchell song Big Yellow Taxi come to mind: “They don’t know what they’ve got till it’s gone, They paved paradise and put up a parking lot.”

Mrs A Brown, Bad Bargain Lane, York

 

MY wife and I, together with three neighbours, are still awaiting delivery of our postal votes for the York local elections.

According to the City of York Council’s website, all postal voting forms were sent out by first-class post on April 23; they were not.

The poll card said that if we had not received them by April 30 we should call 551007 for assistance. I phoned and was told that they had all been posted on Monday, April 27.

It was then reported in The Press and Guardian that thousands remained undelivered.

I phoned again on May 5 to be told that our postal votes had gone out on Friday, May 1, the day before a Bank Holiday weekend which would have left insufficient time to be delivered and returned.

We were told that we could go to the West Offices and be issued with voting forms which could be left there.

This we did, in pouring rain and in our nineties on May 6.

This defeats the object of having a postal vote. Perhaps someone else has used our votes.

I have written to the Electoral Commission to investigate.

Bill Heppell, Rawcliffe Lane, York

 

ON Friday and Saturday, June 5 and 6, seven members of the York branch of the Parachute Regimental Association conducted a street collection in Coppergate and the city centre for the Airborne Forces Security Fund.

Once again the citizens of York and many visitors were very generous with their contributions.

The total money collected was £1,729.44 and on behalf of the association I thank them all.

The Airborne Forces Security Fund at this time focuses on the men of the Second World War, parachutists and glider troops, who were conscripts, not pensionable, and now in their late 80s and 90s, many in need of help.

Those wounded in body and mind in other areas of conflict since the Second World War are the fund’s latest challenge.

Donald Marshall, Chairman, Parachute Regimental Association, Ashbourne Way, Woodthorpe, York

 

IN reply to the letter from Cowley Ryan (The Press, June 15), yes I well remember your father “Paddy” Ryan.

Although I never had the privilege of meeting him personally, I knew well of him and most of the boxers you mention in your letter, in particular Con Bailey, whom I knew as Con “Kid” Bailey.

One of York’s best ever amateur boxers I did know personally was Peter Tomes, British Rail Northern boxing champion.

When I boxed for the stable lads I often visited the Railway Institute in York, where inter boys club contests were held.

I always looked forward to those good old days, to our yearly boxing match against the so called bad boys from Castle Howard Reformatory School, situated just a few yards off the A64.

Not many of us came out of the contests without a shiner.

Ken Holmes, Cliffe Common, Selby

 

NOT long ago City of York Council spent a lot of money re-instating the footpaths on parts of Huntington Road, and an excellent job was done. Now a telecommunications company are digging up the pavements to install superfast internet cables.

In a TV advert years ago, Bob Hoskins used to tell us: “It’s good to talk”.

It might have been a good idea for someone to have talked to Talk Talk.

Peter Newton, Montague Street, York

 

NO doubt when finished St Leonard’s Place will be a magnificent sight but, as reported in The Press (June 19), with 40 properties, some with more than one car, where will they park?

The increased traffic will bring more pollution and congestion to an area of the city that already suffers.

A P Cox, Heath Close, Holgate, York