THE claim by Herr Grupenfuhrer Steve Galloway that City of York Council's HQ proposal is the same as any other major development is utter nonsense. (Goebbels Jibe, The Press, May 19).

It is fundamentally different because it is not submitted by a private individual or commercial organisation, but by the city authorities for the people of this city.

It is a public project supposedly for the use and benefit of we residents, who are paying for it through our taxes.

We have a right to see the work that has been commissioned in our name and paid for with our money.

Furthermore, Herr Galloway's claim that the council proposal respects the limitations of the Hungate site is laughable.

The whole problem stems from the fact that the council is trying to force onto that land a building which is at least twice the size it should be to avoid damaging the conservation area and the setting of the Black Swan listed building.

They would never give permission for anyone else to stack up so much office accommodation on such a restricted area. As Churchill might have said, "Never before in the field of human building has so much office space been demanded by so few for so many."

When the Hungate development brief was out to consultation nobody told us that the council building was to be that enormous or that ugly. But then dictators never were very good at consultation.

John Jones, Sand Hutton, York.