Offenders could offer vital service

I agree that offenders could easily help clean our streets (Letters, September 21). I am told that this is yet another public service to be privatised. While publicly seen to be not shirkers, and learning to take pride in our beautiful city, community service teams could also inspect the state of litter bins, the pavements for loose or broken slabs, streets for potholes and the gullies for blockages.

This data could be of great help to council officials. Some offenders could then be offered training to do some of these repairs at a later date. Definitely a win-win situation.

Ruth Roberts Elmfield Terrace Heworth

Specialists skills on the scrapheap

I write with reference to the announcement by the William Anelay company which has been responsible for the refurbishment of many historic listed buildings since 1747. This seems to be yet another firm of specialist craftsmen consigned to the scrap heap.

This highlights the decline in Government initiatives in recent years to encourage apprenticeship places, not only in high profile technology but in trade craft and the arts, with first a basic knowledge in secondary schools, progressing later to day release and/or night school during early employment.

Following my father’s trade, cabinet making, as an apprentice gave me an insight into the value and beauty of working with many varieties of wood, for example oak, mahogany, beech, etc., with furniture and the like made to last beyond one’s lifetime.

Such quality is in danger of extinction in this throwaway society.

Considering the mother of parliaments is in decay, might I suggest a rescue mission by our very own craftsmen, including stone masons, who by way of protest might hone their skills on this heritage site.

Kenneth Bowker, Vesper Walk, Huntington, York

Lord Mayor has no need to change

Yet again we turn to the letters page of The Press to find another reader expressing their opinion on the wardrobe choices of the Lord Mayor (Is Jeremy Corbyn the Lord Mayor’s here? Letters, September 21). In a society as obsessed with appearance as ours, we should perhaps not be surprised by this, but the question should be asked whether what he is wearing directly impacts on his ability to carry out his duties.

Cllr Taylor has his own style, as do the Sheriff and his Lady, and as do we all, and along with the way we do things, this makes us who we are. Are readers suggesting that Cllr Taylor changes something about himself in order to carry out a voluntary role?

The Lord Mayor’s approachability and the friendliness of the Lady Mayoress are surely qualities that we should prize more than whether he is wearing a tie, or if her ‘biker jacket’ is the appropriate choice.

Although if the only subject readers can find to write to The Press to comment on is what he is wearing then we can certainly congratulate Cllr Taylor on doing a good job as Lord Mayor!

Rebecca Kramm Leven Road, York

Keep your own footpaths tidy

Here is an idea for keeping the paths clean in York: how about all the owners of the shops, tearooms and restaurants arrange to have them swilled down – washed – outside their premises once a week, maybe early in the morning.

I remember as a child this happened outside shops. Even the footpaths outside the houses in the pit village I was born and brought up in were washed down once a week by the families who lived in them.They had pride in their surroundings.

Maureen Robinson, Broadway, York