A FORMER senior figure in York’s civic life once complained that whenever the city’s leaders tried to do anything new and better they were inundated with complaints from people who just wanted things leaving as they were.

Trying to run a city that’s rich in history and impressive vistas obviously poses particular challenges, and it must be galling to be beset with moaners continually claiming everything was better in the past.

On the other hand, there’s also a responsibility to ensure that when you make changes the end result is at least as good as what went before, and preferably better.

I don’t want to add too much to what’s been said already about the King’s Square redevelopment. I’ll restrict myself to saying that, while I generally like open spaces, the new-look square seems to lack the character of what was there before.

Maybe it’s unfortunate timing, as in summer the square might be more full of human activity and more appealing to the onlooker. I suppose we’ll find out in the months to come.

But it’s not only the aesthetics of a public space that can be downgraded by a supposed improvement. One of my bugbears as a pedestrian, which I have mentioned a couple of times before, is the ridiculous situation with the busy crossing at the junction of Blossom Street, Queen Street and Micklegate.

Once governed by a system where the appearance of a “green man” told you it was safe to cross, following a revamp of the general area there appeared some new lights – and the green man was no more.

Instead you have a light flashing on the actual box with the push button on it and a bleeping sound to indicate it’s time to go. The problem comes when it’s busy – as it often is – and crowds obscure the little light at street level and background noise muffles the bleeping.

This creates two problems. The first, as I found one evening last week when trying to cross from the Micklegate side, is that people presumably unused to the lights hang about during the vital few seconds while the traffic is halted waiting in vain for a more clear signal that it’s safe to cross.

The locals, on the other hand, tend to either look across the road to the Nunnery Lane side, where for some reason the signal is more clear, or try to anticipate the lights sequence and nip across when the coast is clear.

This creates the second problem, because it’s a potentially hazardous practice for them, and possibly even more so for visitors who see them and assume it’s safe to step out. I’ve seen this happen more than once, but fortunately most motorists here seem to be fairly sensible.

The answer here is obvious; whether this system is compatible with official guidelines or not, it’s not doing its job and should be changed – and soon.

• BY AN unhappy irony, within an hour or so of writing last week of my frustration at the “tick-box culture” I found myself innocently phoning an insurance company on behalf of a relative who can’t use the phone.

After the usual annoying time on hold, I told the operative the policy number I was inquiring about, naively thinking that might be enough given my question was a very general one which couldn’t possibly yield me any confidential information.

But no; I was assailed with an array of “security questions”. I explained the situation, provided some information about my relative which the operative could check, and said I only wanted to report back if the policy was up for renewal.

“I’d really like to help, but it’s data protection,” he said. Oh no; I’d forgotten that old catch-all favourite, which potentially precludes the provision of any information at all.

At that stage I just gave up, because the only possible result of going on would be me getting more and more ticked off.