I do not know how Councillor Galloway has the nerve to try to blame others for the disastrous collapse of his ill-fated plans to replace the swimming pool and community sports facilities at the Barbican (Barbican pool plan scrapped, January 25). Galloway must know that it is he and his fellow Liberal Democrat councillors who are responsible for this fiasco.

From day one Galloway has behaved like a tin pot dictator and tried to railroad through an unpopular scheme that virtually no one wants - apart from himself and his fellow councillors. He has repeatedly ignored the views of the thousands of people who signed the petition against his redevelopment plans, and has not once sat down with local residents and Barbican users in order to try to find a more acceptable solution. It is the Liberal Democrats' failure to listen to the people that has led to the long drawn-out legal battles against the scheme.

All along Galloway has been chasing fool's gold by basing his financial plans for the Barbican redevelopment on the boom in luxury flat building. Instead of pursuing a more modest redevelopment scheme, which might have won a measure of public support, he gambled that he could cash in on the property boom. But you did not need to be an economic genius to work out that this was a bubble about to burst.

Most disturbingly, not only is Galloway refusing to take responsibility for the way that he has mishandled the Barbican redevelopment, he now seems to be engaged in blatant piece of electioneering. Instead of providing a new city centre pool and sports facilities which can benefit everyone in York, the Liberal Democrats are now planning to use all the money gained from the Barbican sale to fund sports facilities in their electoral heartland in the west of the city.

Danny Golding,

Albemarle Road,

York.

Updated: 10:24 Tuesday, January 31, 2006