SO Cllr Denise Craghill, green councillor for Gillygate, calls for public money to be wasted investigating a possible closure of Gillygate to cut pollution levels following the entirely predictable fall in pollution when the street was shut during recent utility works.

If Gillygate was closed to certain traffic, the displaced traffic would be fouled up on other roads, increasing pollution there.

Certain York councillors don’t seem to have learned anything from the Lendal Bridge closure debacle.

Leaving aside the main cause of pollution spikes in York and the UK as a whole that being the green lobby and their carbon reduction mania being listened to by Government “experts” in the 1990s leading to incentives for the population to switch to diesel vehicles with inevitable consequences, there are simple cost effective measures the council could take to get traffic flowing down Gillygate and cut pollution levels.

The queuing traffic idling in Gillygate and Bootham miraculously disappears every time the traffic lights at the Gillygate/Bootham junction fail, this “free” trial leads to motorists, pedestrians and cyclists all behaving sensibly and with courtesy allowing all to negotiate this junction without problems.

Want to alleviate pollution fumes in Gillygate and the rest of York?

Remove as many impediments to the free flow of traffic as possible.

Mark Warters, Independent councillor Osbaldwick and Derwent