LETTERS ROUND-UP: Get Spark covered up...Cunning plan on Brexit...Cost of EU club too high

City of York Council has every justification in issuing an enforcement notice without further delay, giving Spark 28 days to start work.

It is six months since the planning breach and six weeks since their retrospective application was rejected. There is no requirement for the council to wait until the appeal period for that refusal has expired and this is a case where speedy enforcement is warranted.

But there is a much quicker way to expedite compliance. As landlord the council can invoke clauses in the lease agreement to compel Spark to do what they agreed forthwith - or remove their containers from the site.

It is not a lack of legislation or contractual terms that is preventing the council from setting a timetable for cladding work. It is a lack of will to use the powers available to it.

I would like to know why. It is almost as if Spark have a ‘Fairy Godmother’ looking after their interests.

Matthew Laverack,

Lord Mayors Walk, York

Is our cunning plan on Brexit working?

I wonder what it’s like to be Theresa May, having to keep the DUP happy by pulling the UK out of the EU without creating any borders anywhere. And coming up with a plan enough Tories can agree on, which satisfies Labour’s ‘six tests’, and to which the remaining EU member states can all sign up.

The job’s impossible of course, which is why she’s still in Downing Street. Nobody else wants it - well not yet, do they, Boris?

If I were a Remain campaigner before the referendum, I’d say Brexit means Brexit. I’d pretend to believe in it. I’d say my task is to deliver it. I’d play for time by calling an unnecessary General Election, hoping something might turn up. And I’d come up with a plan nobody believes in, saying it’s the only credible option, even though Brexiteers and Remainers alike think it’s worse than staying in the EU.

I’d say there will be no second referendum, hoping pressure builds up for one. By the time the whole thing has descended into an even bigger farrago than it already is, the British public might have got sufficiently fed up to vote decisively by a narrow majority to stay in the EU after all.

Then it’d be the Brexiteers’ turn to complain the vote was only advisory, the majority wasn’t big enough. And even though Brexiteers never wanted a second referendum, purely for reasons of democratic principle it’d be their turn to demand a third one and - please God! - not get it.

Hmm. Can’t be certain this cunning plan is going to work, but so far, so good. Fingers crossed.

Alan Robinson, Lindley Street, Holgate, York

Subscription fee for Club EU is too high

I entirely agree with your correspondent Christian Vassie when he says that one cannot leave a club and still retain membership privileges (Letters, September 25).

In the case of Club EU we are leaving with our bat and ball because our subscription is too high and the batting order is arbitrarily decided by a self-appointed clique of a committee. Our BMW is clamped in the car park to allow a junior member to practise his hurling.

Of course we cannot expect to be able to look in for afternoon tea whenever we feel like it but fortunately there are several excellent cafes in the village serving afternoon cream teas a la carte rather than table d’hote.

A V Martin, Wigginton, York