I attended the presentation at the Minster of the proposed Cultural Quarter (Quarter question, The Press, November 5). The idea is an interesting one, except for the fact that the outlets for “culture” are spread throughout the city of York, from Guppy’s’in Nunnery Lane, to the Grand Opera House in the centre of York.

The current proposal correctly includes the National Railway Museum, if a new footbridge is built from the museum to the Marygate side of the River Ouse. Culturally, a great idea, as it broadens the base of the Cultural Quarter.

Not such a good idea if the much-used moorings are taken into account, unless new ones are found for the many boats that visit York each year. A large part of Marygate Landing would be lost.

A redevelopment of Scarborough Bridge (the railway bridge) would cover the link from the railway museum to the edge of the proposed Cultural Quarter.

As to the concept of a Cultural Quarter itself, it leaves out nearly all the bookshops, most of the cafés, the City Screen Cinema, the Opera House, and so on.

The only solution would be to designate the whole of the walled city a City Of Culture, which would, of course, preclude Guppy’s in Nunnery Lane.

As to a name for the Cultural Quarter – any ideas?

Tony Martin, Clarence Street, York.

• Having described the proposed Cultural Quarter as a sham (Cultural sham, Letters, November 1), I felt honour-bound to accept the invitation to attend the council’s showcase in the transept of the Minster (the shop being presently too small for such events).

I need hardly say that as a public consultation it was a sham. If you believe that the Cultural Quarter is a waste of your money, and hoped to register your view, you had far better have turned aside and listened to Evensong instead. However, the Cultural Quarter is a sham in another sense. York is celebrated for its historical associations, so one would have expected the City Archives to be at the heart of any serious discussion of local culture. The archives are also physically at the heart of York, in Exhibition Square. Yet the archivists were not invited to the party.

Dismayed by this extraordinary omission, I accosted a barker who claimed to be a councillor.

I was a little sceptical at first, since he had no officer at his elbow to feed him information, but when he explained that he knew nothing about the archives, or anything at all about the proposed Cultural Quarter, except where it was to be, I readily accepted his credentials.

I soon discovered that the hawkers couldn’t answer my questions either. I was in a confrontational mood, but there was nothing to confront.

The Cultural Quarter is simply a marketing slogan, a concept nebulous and wraith-like, with no more substance than those legless legionaries.

This discovery ought to have been a comfort, but once the Assistant Director of Sustainable Bright Ideas and his equally unelected marketing cronies have decided what this scary vision is supposed to be, you can be sure the bill will be real enough.

William Dixon Smith, Welland Rise, Acomb, York.