Although I too believe St Leonard's Hospice is a very worthy cause (Evening Press, October 7), I was extremely dismayed yet again by the comments of my local MP Anne McIntosh.

Some of the travellers live in her own constituency, whom she was elected to represent. Yet here she is again, making a reactionary, bland statement because she thinks it will be popular with the public.

All it does is incite hatred against a minority group and your paper's attention-grabbing headline exacerbates this.

Looking at the reason for the grant application, I believe it is just as worthy as St Leonard's, albeit for different reason. But then again, the Tories never believed in community values, did they?

When will Anne McIntosh start to represent her constituents in a constructive, instead of destructive manner? Her behaviour is the epitome of everything distasteful within the Conservative movement which makes them abhorrent to many, and quite frankly the people in the Vale deserve better.

Jane Overhill-Smith,

Hillcrest Avenue,

Nether Poppleton, York.

...Allocating National Lottery grants must require the wisdom of King Solomon.

My heart went out to Thomas Swales and his fellow travellers (Evening Press, October 8) when I read of their proud and dignified reaction to the front page Evening Press article, 'It's a Lottery.

The spokeswoman for St Leonard's Hospice was equally dignified in her reply to an intolerable, impossible situation.

Margaret Lawson,

Aldborough House,

The Groves, York.

..With reference to the lottery grant to York Travellers' Trust, we wish to make it clear we very much regret that such a deserving cause as St Leonard's Hospice did not get the grant it was seeking.

However, we are concerned readers may feel their loss has been the travellers' gain and that the travellers might be blamed for this. This is far from the truth. Each application made to the lottery is considered on its merits and in this case the application for St Leonard's Hospice was considered by a completely different committee to the one that made the grant to York Travellers' Trust.

We understand that some travellers are saying that they do not welcome the lottery grant. In the wake of such negative publicity, perhaps this is not surprising, however, these views are a concern to us and we will look into them.

The application to the lottery was made by the Travellers' Project after seven years work with travellers in York and follows research carried out by the social policy research unit of York University published in 1998. This revealed that travellers had many concerns about health, education and their general living conditions.

The York Travellers' Trust aims to involve travellers in the design of the services they need, a principle which has been welcomed by the authorities.

Finally, one of the main aims of the project is to encourage a better understanding between travellers and the community and to avoid the conflicts which have so often been a feature of the past. The award from the lottery will enable the project to continue this work.

Colin Stroud,

General Secretary,

York Council for Voluntary Service.

Priory Street, York.

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.