AT a time when travelling on buses is not recommended due to social distancing, the City of York Council has not helped with recent decisions on roadworks and road closures.

Need to close the road to re-surface Fishergate? Let us choose to include a Bank Holiday weekend, when visitors will be pouring into York, no matter that standing traffic will back up to the ring road, maximising the effects on air pollution.

Close The Groves area to traffic to help clean air? Move the traffic queues closer to the city centre on Lord Mayor's Walk, Monkgate and Clarence Street. That should be a help to ambulance and emergency vehicles. ("Both ambulance and Fire Service have raised concerns that could impact on their ability to respond...requiring them to make time-consuming detours" - Councillor Paul Doughty).

Just a minor niggle - letters to The Press on the issue of The Groves closure have resorted to the lazy inaccuracy, and rather petulant term "rat run." Traditionally, a rat run was an illegal short-cut through a car park, private road or back alley.

Most drivers using The Groves area were doing so mainly to access York Hospital and to manage local deliveries and were doing so legally as council tax payers and road tax payers.

In other words, these roads are paid for and sustained by those who use them, not "rats," but responsible citizens.

So here`s a thought - if these roads are closed to general traffic to become a private enclave, will the residents of The Groves be prepared to take over the maintenance and repair of the roads and the funding of street lighting from those they choose to term "rats"?

Ron Burnett,

Holly Terrace,

York