So now we know the price of the Rougier Street hubris: £24m! - not to mention all the wasted staff time and cost to our cash-strapped council and York Archaeology (The Press, February 1).

Only the council business assessment got it right – that the project was financially unviable.

The Roman Quarter was just a bait to reel in support, and the Liberal Democrat councillors and others who should have known better backed the huge ghastly building and voted it through.

Your excellent report on February 1 detailed the tangled company web woven, with numerous intertwined companies behind the project.

Now it has been all closed down owing tens of thousands in council tax and unpaid businesses.

But at least York has been spared the monstrous carbuncle in Rougier Street.

Let’s hope the existing building will now be refurbished and given a new lease of life.

Christopher Rainger, Grange Street, York

 

Roman Quarter is ‘Eboracum and gone’

So the Roman Quarter is dead and buried - or to put it another way ‘Eboracum and gone’ (The Press, February 2). While expressing sympathy for the firms behind this scheme that have gone under, it’s not altogether a surprise. The plan was too ambitious.

‘Eboracum’ isn’t a new idea.The Romans first thought of it two millennia ago. Back then the city thronged with ‘visitors’ from all over; just like now.

Could one factor behind the failure of project ‘Roman Quarter’ be that York has just about had its fill of tourist attractions?

We’re almost at full capacity, approaching saturation point.

A similar principle might apply to the number of students in York. The accommodation, facilities and amenities to sustain and support them must surely have limits.

I hardly dare say it but ‘Is York growing too big for its boots?’ It’s a fine city with much going for it but should lines be drawn; if so, where and when?

Derek Reed, Middlethorpe Drive, York