AN excellent article by Sue Nelson (The Press, July 20), but she missed the point.

City of York Council want the money in from the tourists but they do not actually want the tourists here.

If they did then they would provide decent toilets, decent street and rubbish clearing, stop boarding up buildings, encourage the use of open areas, stop the indiscriminate parking, run Park&Ride services late in the evenings and lower car parking charges. Perhaps all this could be paid for by the supposed millions that were made from the two cycle races.

Approaches to the city are lined with boarded up buildings and empty shops – not encouraging for the visitor. Open spaces where visitors can sit and enjoy a coffee and snack are covered with large tents advertising Yorkshire products or have foreign markets, while our own market has been virtually decimated after what we are told was a £1.6 million investment. Need I go on?

We need to allow our local shops and traders to open until 9pm or 10pm in the evening and to allow them to pay the staff to do it by reducing council taxes, licences and other exorbitant charges.

Perhaps the slogan for should be “Get Real” not “Make It York”.

Phill Thomas, Brecksfields, Skelton, York

 

THE Archbishop of York opened his Bishopthorpe Palace grounds for a fundraiser for St Leonard’s Hospice on Saturday evening.

A cause very deserving of support.

The evening ended with fireworks so loud that residents of the street I live in came out of their homes to find out where the deafening explosions were coming from. It sounded like artillery fire.

This happened last year too, and I wrote to the Palace to complain. I received no reply. Like 40 per cent of homes in the UK, we have dogs.

They were terrified once again by the cacophony.

I cannot explain to them that their home has suddenly become a place of fear in aid of a good cause.

I have contacted the Palace again but have come to expect no reply.

I fully support fundraising for the hospice, but fireworks are simply not needed at the end of such events.

They cost a fortune which would be much better spent on the running of the hospice. Please Archbishop, no more fireworks.

Tony Baldock, School Lane, Bishopthorpe

 

IN response to Mark Windmill (Letters, July 14), “Budget leaves low paid worse off”.

I am delighted that the British public have put their faith in a majority Conservative Government in the general election.

The Conservative manifesto is for working people: it will deliver three million apprenticeships, more help with childcare, helping 30 million people cope with the cost of living by cutting their taxes, building homes that people can buy and own, creating millions of jobs, delivering an in-out referendum on our future in Europe.

Real opportunities lie ahead.

Together we can make Great Britain greater still.

Terry Smith, Fourth Avenue, Heworth, York

 

THE Tories promised in their election manifesto that elderly care costs would be capped from 2016.

This was a blatant lie, as a cap will not be implemented until 2020 at the earliest.

They have now ordered a review into the Freedom of Information workings, presumably to make it more difficult for the public to know the things that they don’t want us to know.

Barely two months into their majority administration, David Cameron’s true colours are peeping out.

Even the used car salesman’s association would refuse his membership application.

Geoff Robb, Hunters Close, Dunnington

 

IN my profession I meet lots of people who are individuals, and different in so many ways.

So, ever the thinker, I got to thinking what we have that makes us the same. “If we are lucky”?

We have two eyes on our face, one head that holds a brain, one chest and one torso, within it a heart that feels pain.

A neck that supports our head, with an ear on each side, two arms hang from two shoulders, no matter how wide.

Two legs with knobbly knees, eight fingers, two feet with ten toes, we also have two nostrils, one on each side of our nose.

Then there’s the gory bits, two lungs, two kidneys, one liver, one stomach one bowel, one intestine, all that makes me quiver.

Oh yes I forgot to mention, we have a mouth to suck two thumbs, if I have forgotten anything else, and I probably have, oh crumbs.

At school I gave Biology the elbow twice, Two hands, can say “Thank You”.

Peter Stockdale, Leeds