WELL done Phil Morton (The Press, April 12) for taking early redundancy.

I think I would have been pleased to have taken redundancy too if the ratepayer was paying me £397,000.

Who decides how much these council bosses get?

Do they make the decision themselves?

Could they ever get a job in private industry paying so much?

I look around York and think what a mess the council has made in the city in the past few decades.

St Sampson’s Square had a large ladies toilet. In Parliament Street there was a large gents toilet which included a barbers and a left luggage area. Outside it was a large market where stallholders would display and demonstrate their goods.

Now we have gigantic deciduous trees overlooking a very expensive but useless fountain. The damage that the roots of these trees are doing will cost tens of thousands of pounds to put right.

Instead of a regular market in Parliament Street we have a continuous parade of sheds and marquees going up and down like yo-yos. The so-called Shambles Market is living up to its name and shrinking by the month.

At great expense the character has been taken out of Kings Square and Tower Gardens are ruined because no effort is made to control the geese. Attempts seem to have been made to keep traffic in the city as long as possible.

The only improvements that have been made are the luxurious council offices.

Derek Martin, Maple Grove, York