It was interesting to read in Saturdays Press further developments in York to change iconic buildings into leisure or hospitality venues (‘Former travel agency and bank may become eatery’ and ‘Former New Look shop to be transformed in deal’, both August 14).

Grantside, North Star and the Helmsley Group must be confident that more restaurants, bars and other leisure activities can be profitable ventures, although I wonder how many more restaurants, cafes and bars the city can take.

Cafés come and go with some regularity, which questions how many can be profitable.This also reduces the buildings available for retail stores - but with the change to online shopping, perhaps that is inevitable.

I can foresee the city centre becoming a no go area for shopping and just a major tourist centre with plenty of places to eat, drink, visit the many existing tourist attractions and our two major theatres.

If that happens we can hopefully ban all traffic from our city centre, extend the many outside seating areas already created during the covid restrictions and extend the park and ride times to support the evening economy.

Jim Welsman, Regular visitor to York, Stamford Bridge