THAT the appalling York racecourse firework displays may be forced to end at 10pm is a fudge by the leisure department (January 10).

The problem is not the timing of these displays, but the fact the council allows them to take place at all, given the loudness of the fireworks used.

The events officer expresses anxiety about the danger to young people who may be attracted to Knavesmire if advance publicity is given.

How strange that the council should be so worried about purely theoretical hazards, while completely ignoring the real threats already posed to every child who lives in the vicinity: those of deafness and tinnitus.

As a reader explained in a previous letter (November 9), loud, low-frequency noise also causes cellular disorganisation - pre-cancer.

All these horrors come on top of the immediate distress and fear which the organisers of these unnecessary entertainments are creating.For young children to be so callously disregarded is unacceptable. It is abuse.

The council should ban firework displays on Knavesmire and the riverbank. For the sake of every baby and small child in the South Bank area, it is imperative the council grasps this nettle.

Juliette Robertson,

Albemarle Road,

South Bank, York.

Updated: 11:15 Tuesday, January 18, 2005