THE report about the York planning committee having to be cancelled is not surprising (March 26).

I only found out about the planning committee of February 26 through your pages, despite having registered objections on behalf of two organisations to a development that was to be discussed.

Having read the Evening Press, I contacted the council and, lo and behold, myself and other objectors received letters by first-class post on the Saturday before the meeting.

On February 21 I wrote a complaint about this to the director of environment and development services and I still await a response.

However, I am not holding my breath, because I had to initiate correspondence on behalf of the Friends Of Rawcliffe Meadows in 1999 with the same person, the director of environment and development services, about the planning agreement on the Clifton Hospital site which was not being enforced.

Only with the help of MPs Ann McIntosh and Hugh Bayley were responses forthcoming.

Now, ten years after the it was signed, the agreement shows some sign of being enforced. The sad part is the amount the site has deteriorated in that time.

The hospital borders Rawcliffe Meadows and the boundary has not been maintained for much of the ten years.

Blaming the computer system is a feeble excuse by a department that, in my experience, has an appalling record.

Mick Phythian,

Chair, York Natural Environment Trust,

Monkton Road, York.

Updated: 10:20 Wednesday, March 31, 2004