Opposition to reopening The Groves to cut hospital traffic

What is even more frustrating is that much of the pressure to do so seems to be coming from people who do not live in these neighbourhoods and will not have to live with the consequences.

Our streets are not just lines on a GPS map designed to shave X minutes off a commute; they are communities. They are places where children live and where neighbours actually know one another.

By turning these residential areas back into “rat runs” (yes they were indeed) we are essentially telling local families that their safety and quality of life are secondary to the convenience of through-traffic.

If this goes ahead, we will see a mass exodus of families, further damaging the social fabric of York.

The reality is that traffic in our area is no worse than anywhere else in our historic city. The problem isn’t that these specific streets are closed; the problem is that York simply cannot manage the current volume of cars. We live in a medieval city, not a modern metropolis built for a car-first culture.

Instead of displacing traffic into the hearts of our neighbourhoods, the focus must remain on a more efficient public transport system. We should be encouraging those who can to leave the car at home, rather than inviting more exhaust fumes past our front doors.

We need a long-term, sustainable vision for York - not a short-sighted “solution” that destroys the very communities that make this city a home.

Name and address supplied

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Click to tip

What a nonsense. It won’t change when people want to visit the tip and there were no problems until the site closed Wednesdays. It should be open six days a week.

People working all week would be happy to go on Saturdays.

The hospital traffic was bearable until the Groves was foolishly closed. We need the streets open again.

Pictures of David Skaith dishing out taxpayers’ money, as if it was his, would be better if he gave money to York council to pay for longer working hours at Hazel Court.

I think we all know what he looks like by now.

John Zimnoch, Osbaldwick

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Profusion of Primulas

Primulas seem to come in far more colours than the proverbial rainbow nowadays. Multicoloured carpets of them await visitors to any nursery or garden centre, putting Joseph’s ‘technicolour dream coat’ in the shade.

The variety is staggering. It seems to me no colour is left unrepresented…except black. Scores of different hues compete for attention.

You can almost hear them calling ‘Me, me; select me!’ Is there a greater variety of these hardy little beauties than any other flower on (or ‘in’) earth? More and more shades and variations in colour appear from a seemingly limitless palette, all ‘designed’ to brighten up our day, which they do.

We’ve come a long way from primroses, cowslips, oxlips and auriculae but - and call me ‘old-fashioned’ - I still prefer these original ‘wild’ primroses in their pastel shades.

Meanwhile, the quest is on for the striped primula (‘primula zebra’). I’m not a gardener, and it shows; I have a feeling that the horticulturalists are about to tell me that striped primulas do exist so call off the search!

Whatever, I especially love a bank of ‘traditional primroses’ in countryside or garden. I can remember childhood days driving round the country lanes near Buttercrambe (other areas also available) in the family Morris 8 with Dad at the wheel on the lookout for these pale yellow delights. We kids in the back would get excited whenever a clump was spotted. Thank you ‘Head Gardener’.

Derek Reed, Address supplied

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