I am a low-income earner whose rent may very well increase to compensatefor the forthcoming council tax increase. If City of York Council is so short of funds, can it please justify why it is spending, or planning on spending, so much money on cyclists?

Recent examples include approximately £400,000 on the planned Blossom Street junction alterations, £500,000 to alter the Water Lane junction and the planned £300,000 for the glorified bike shed next to Lendal Bridge.

Others are cycle lanes on Fulford Road and Beckfield Lane, green-coloured tarmac everywhere, and now the stupidest idea I’ve heard in a long time, cycle lanes over Lendal Bridge.

As a non-car owning cyclist I can see no justification for such a disproportionately large sum of council tax being spent on what is a relatively small group in proportion to the total population.

I would rather York council start prioritising its expenditure; spending our tax on only the essentials.

One such example would be urgently repairing the atrocious and dangerous road surfaces. This would benefit all road users, and not just the small group of cyclists either too stupid or too obstinate to learn how to ride a bike within the free flow of traffic.

David Macdonald, Aldwark House, Aldwark, York.

• Since the announcement that some £3.2 million was to be spent in improving facilities for cyclists in this city, things seem to have gone very quiet.

However, I have some suggestions:

1 Cyclists use the roads (at least most of them.) 2 Following the recent cold weather the roads are in a shocking state.

3 Use some of this money to repair the roads.

4 Everybody will now be happy. Both motorists and cyclists have decent roads to ride/drive on and, of course all motorists will be happy because, at last, cyclists have actually paid for something.

Mike Usherwood, Mendip Close, Huntington, York.