LETTERS ROUND-UP

Several of the traders who have been coming for years have given up recently, presumably because their views and needs were being ignored.

Newcomers seem to be selling fancy, gift-type goods and not the basic everyday items shoppers go to markets for.

Obviously there is room for both, but people go to markets for reasonably priced bargains and if all they find are dearer goods they will go elsewhere.

The original excuse for moving the farmers’ market was that it apparently deterred people from going into Shambles market, and Parliament Street was to be an open entertainment performance area.

So what do we have now?

The Food and Drink Festival the full length of Parliament Street, where the farmers’ market was held once a month.

It’s about time we had some consistency instead of this one rule one week and another the next.

Someone needs to sort out their priorities and start to listen to the traders and the loyal, local people instead of pandering to the whims of just the visitors.

P Witlea, Bishopthorpe, York

ON the 11th of the 11th we will all watch the TV memorial service and wear our poppy with pride.

What a load of the proverbial.

Our young men died in two World Wars. We also ask our young men to serve and go out to foreign parts and fight for democracy. A percentage come back home in body bags.

Yet today the old soldiers and modern soldiers who wear their uniform and come back home are frowned upon.

If they need to visit a hospital or go shopping, they are told leave or hide in another room “just in case you upset someone”. It’s a disgrace.

We should be celebrating the living soldiers.

They can see the thanks, the dead can’t. And what about the 9,000 military men with not a roof over their heads?

What’s wrong with Britain today?

Our lads had been promised everything and got nothing. Britain does not deserve you.

David Wardell, Malton Road, York

I’VE just heard on the news about an RAF sergeant who, after being injured, was taken to hospital for treatment.

While waiting to be seen by a doctor he was moved from the waiting area to a side room “because sight of his uniform may cause offence to other patients”.

Rudyard Kipling, in his poem Tommy, covers this shameful behaviour absolutely spot on.

“For it’s Tommy this, an’ Tommy that, an’ Chuck him out the brute!

But it’s Saviour of ‘is Country when the guns begin to shoot.”

Kipling wrote that poem in 1892 but its sentiment obviously still holds good today.

There is every possibility that it will be do-gooders who, as usual, see problems which don’t exist and who have carried out this shameful “hiding” of the RAF sergeant.

Slipping back into those Tommy days is a retrograde step. It’s 2015 not 1892.

Philip Roe, Roman Avenue South, Stamford Bridge

IN response to Cllr John Galvin letter on Reynards Garage (The Press, September 8), I agree the building in Piccadilly is in a dangerous state and is a threat to the public.

I think it should be sold for the highest price by City of York Council and be demolished, and the land used to build a new hotel or a mixture of new retail shop units with flats above.

This will create new jobs and housing for the people, which York desperately needs.

Terry Smith, Fourth Avenue, Heworth, York

ONCE again York councillors, this time three Labour councillors, Sonja Crisp, Tracey Simpson-Laing and Sandy Fraser, abuse the standards board system by submitting a vexatious and frivolous case (The Press, September 21).

The independent investigator, upon hearing the recording of the meeting, immediately dismissed the case. So what, you might ask.

This wasteful, vindictive endeavour cost us all time, money and stress, yet only my recording and Cllr Healey giving the okay to have the complaint published under a Freedom of Information request has allowed us to even glimpse into this opaque system.

Apparently there are not infrequent complaints to the standards board, normally councillors having a go at each other. So I have a proposal: 1 Every standards board complaint (proceeded or not) and case notes will be reported in public domain, at its conclusion to the audit and governance committee.

2 Every complaint will result in an action from at least the party that loses the case. The A&G committee will review each case to ensure changes are not needed in the code of conduct or constitution. Adopting this more transparent process, councillors will perhaps be more selective in their use of standards process, saving us time, money and reputation.

Gwen Swinburn, The Groves, York

THE Press’ criticism of what it terms political ‘tit for tat’ by opposing parties in York is misplaced (Comment, September 24), because it implies the present administration should simply accept all of Labour’s bad ideas and be done with it.

The new Conservative-Lib Dem administration takes a different approach to governance from its control-mad predecessors. It no longer compels people to accept decisions affecting their neighbourhoods (Newbury Avenue) or important historic buildings (the Guildhall) without proper review and consultation.

Where there has already been extensive resident input, such as with the draft Local Plan, we are now taking into account the responses of the thousands of residents who contributed during the consultation process to develop a Local Plan that reflects the real needs of the city.

Certainly decisions will have to be taken which will not be popular. But four months ago residents clearly voted for a different approach to the way the council makes decisions and consults with residents and this is the path to which this administration is committed.

Cllr Keith Myers, Acomb ward