AFTER marrying into a family of past and present Terry's workers, I have lost count of the number of times I have heard the phrase "we have stopped making them".

This has been going on since Kraft bought the company. Kraft have purposely stopped making all the smaller Terry's products, the "bread-and-butter" lines, in favour of the large volume products which fit nicely into their other factories.

Kraft have now achieved what they set out to do; they have created a small production line producing quality chocolates that are household names, in a large factory that they have systematically emptied.

Of course it's no longer viable.

What sort of company can operate under those conditions and expect to survive?

What chance did they have?

As for the people who say there are plenty of job vacancies in York, which cloud do they live on?

Where are these jobs?

Unless of course they expect people to pay £100,000 for their first home while they are working in Burger King.

This is a sad time for Terry's, for York and for this country in general.

God Bless America!

Andy Dickinson,

Chaloners Road,

Dringhouses, York.

...THE furore over the closure of Terry's chocolate factory has so far thrown up only three possibilities: to retain it, to put it to alternative industrial use, or to turn it into residential units.

There is, however, a fourth way and that is for York University to expand not on to the Green Belt around Heslington, but on the Terry's site.

The enormous building would easily convert into lecture halls, seminar rooms, accommodation areas, refectories and departmental offices. The existing offices could continue as they are and be used by admin.

The university already occupies split sites at Heslington and King's Manor and the Bishopthorpe Road site, which is at the third point of the triangle and within easy reach of both. Thanks to the Millennium Bridge there is an excellent route between there and the main campus and when the university sets up its new law department, the Law College would be next door, a situation which would be of tremendous mutual benefit.

Heslington residents would no longer have to fear that their beautiful village could wrecked by the proposed Campus III over-development and the 1920s factory buildings, which are of great architectural interest, in particular the Free-Georgian offices, the splendid mullioned and transomed windows, the massive cornice and of course the magnificent clock tower would all be saved for future generations.

L Grahame,

South Bank, York.

...CITY of York should be brave and slap an order on the Terry's factory site ensuring it cannot be used for private, luxury housing, thus reducing the price of the land.

The council, York Hospital, the University of York and York Against Cancer could then come together and buy Terry's site and turn it into the best cancer care research and respite facility in the country.

We have the best doctors and nurses here already and it is time they had somewhere decent to work and park.

This would automatically release more room for the main hospital.

With the new influx of people to the city it is time we had a second hospital.

It is pitiful watching seriously ill patients struggling with wheelchairs trying to get to a non-existent car park.

A new facility on a beautiful site is what our citizens deserve. After all, most of them helped to make it great, possibly by working a lifetime in the Terry's chocolate factory.

Pamela Egan,

The White House,

North Lane,

Malton Road,

York.

....SOME time ago the Evening Press reported that a new site for a new district hospital was being sought.

Should the Terry's factory be sold, as I am sure it will be, it would make a suitable site for a new district hospital with room for all support facilities and car parking.

It would also meet the planning criteria for employment use.

J Skelton,

Bracken Road,

Dringhouses,

York.

Updated: 09:56 Friday, April 30, 2004