ONE good thing the New Year delivers is the chance to elect a new council.

Not those who are really responsible for the council’s failings of course, as we don’t get to fire the senior civil servants, but at least we can punish those who failed to hold them to account.

In particular I would encourage residents to ask their councillors, who in the next few months will suddenly start appearing in your neighbourhood begging for your vote, what they intend to do about the Local Plan now we know the ONS figures for projected housing requirements have been revised to half of what was assumed when the plan was voted through.

I know the Tories like to claim they’re the party which will protect the Green Belt and the Lib Dems love re-running a conclusive vote when it turns out certain facts could be considered as misleading, so why not have another go at getting this developer’s charter thrown out?

I’d like to challenge them to use the local elections next year as a de facto referendum on the plan and give those who live in an already overcrowded city a chance to throw the Local Plan into the same shredder that the Government’s Brexit deal will be consigned to.

It’s our city, let the people decide how much bigger it should become.

Dr Scott Marmion,

Woodthorpe, York