COPPERGATE II crops up in conversation all the time.

Everyone I know would like to see the revised scheme, as exhibited, chucked out.

The council must feel caught between a rock and a hard place. How can it possibly reconcile commercial viability with civic grace?

The answer is that, on its own, it probably can't.

So we are asked to comment on a developer-led agglomeration of tacky buildings and kiss goodbye to a golden opportunity of giving York something to put it on the modern heritage map - thus slipping further behind Barcelona, Salford, Bilbaoand even Walsall.

Can York really take much more?

Is there another way?

Well, possibly, there is.

The Millennium Bridge has that magic 'heritage' quality.

But it had Lottery funding and trustees committed to first-class design.

Could not the council devise a 'heritage' component to Coppergate II that would:

u Satisfy the critics...

u And qualify for a thumping great Lottery grant big enough to take off some of the financial pressure?

Dick Gardner,

Tadcaster Road,

Dringhouses,

York.