LETTERS ROUND-UP

The participants were York Museums Trust chief executive Janet Barnes and colleague, and assistant director Charlie Croft, of City of York Council, acting as the Trust’s advocate.

Dr Barnes spoke of a new relationship to be formed with the people of York by charging us to see our own art and artefacts.

All pensioners were rich enough to pay. That it was a great bargain.

This wasn’t a key decision because, the assistant director said, it wouldn’t have much impact on residents.

It became clear that nobody had troubled to prepare much of a case.

But why would they when the assistant director had written that the Trust had had an “understanding” that the council would agree to start charging immediately.

They had incorporated that assumption into their business plan following un-minuted discussions.

The decision to charge residents was merely deferred by the leisure, culture and tourism meeting.

The unelected and unaccountable elites will try again to penalise residents by treating them like tourists.

Colin Hall, Tower Place, York

TO the people who say shame on having to pay £7.50 to get into York Art Gallery, here’s something to chew over.

Cost of membership for two people at the same address for a year to the gallery is £23 via their website.

It’s about the same cost as a packet of Polos a week.

You can then visit the gallery as many times as you like, whereas a packet of Polos will be gone in half an hour.

Cut backs in funding are a reality we have to accept.

The art gallery seems pretty good value to me.

Philip Nelson, St Olave’s Road, York

RE: “Doctor helped give £190m mental health contract to partner’s trust” (The Press, July 27).

It is inappropriate of the Leeds and York Partnership NHS Foundation Trust CEO to publicly cry “unfair” about how Leeds lost the Vale of York mental health contract.

As a mental health service user, I was involved in the CCG procurement process through the PCU, and that process was unequivocally fair.

1. Service users, carers and partner organisations were involved in the procurement process through well-attended PCU engagements events.

2. LYPFT failed to fulfil the contract they were commissioned to provide. VoYCCG acknowledged that services have deteriorated over the last two to three years.

3. CQC reports highlighted that LYPFT services required improvement, and identified that staff caseloads were dangerously high.

4. Mental health service users are being put at increased risk, and routinely being discharged with unmet needs due to excessively high caseloads.

5. GPs are increasingly being left to case manage vulnerable patients.

GPs and partner organisations consistently raised concerns with VoYCCG regarding the state of local mental health services.

The CCG would have had a responsibility to seriously consider if they could afford to persist in wasting millions on services that continue to deteriorate, or whether they should award the contract to an alternative provider.

A dismayed service user, Name and address supplied

RECYCLING executive member Cllr Andrew Waller may think that his photo opportunity (The Press, July 24) looks impressive with him holding a green bin full of foliage, and that new rubbish lorries will cure all ills.

But the sure way to get recycling rates above 50 per cent is to target those premises that regularly do not have any recycling boxes put out for collection on the day the lorries come round.

Take a look at 7am and the culprits will be evident.

Geoff Robb, Hunters Close, Dunnington

IN reply to letters from Wojciech Simpson and Stephen Robinson (The Press, July 21), I would like to explain my views further.

Walking the stretch of the Foss between Monkgate and the Highthorn Estate in Huntington three or four times a day (weather permitting), I only comment on what I see.

Seeing a group of fishermen eating food or drinking beer on the riverbank and then walking past later to see the empty cans and rubbish, and discarded equipment, I can only surmise it is theirs.

Since sending my last letter in, I came across two young men spinning for pike or perch.

On dragging a small pike from the river, they had no landing net and proceeded to try to extract the lure with no means of removing the hooks.

I walked away in disgust and the next day in the same spot in the weeds I saw a dead pike.

Are they fishermen?

You can purchase a fishing outfit for £14.99, but a rod doesn’t make them fishermen.

DM Deamer, Monkgate, York

SO John Bercow pays £172 to be taken in a chauffeur-driven car from Parliament to a conference less than a mile away (The Press, July 25).

Surely a taxi could have got him there just as fast, or did the chauffeur-driven car have a big sign on saying “I am carrying an important person get out of my way”?

He could have walked it and look at the exercise he would have had.

M Robinson, Broadway, York