YORK is a city with limited lung power due to the lack of green space.

The pocket-handkerchiefs of the Museum Gardens and the Minster Gardens are leaving the population gasping for air.

However, there is a possible cure to be found in the Clifford's Tower area. With invasive surgery, life could be breathed into this soulless area of York.

Here is my vision of how the area around Clifford's Tower could be: I have an arch at the main entrance (Clifford's Bar) that leads into Clifford's Park.

Inside there are water fountains, a bandstand, benches, flower beds, trees and sculptures, while twin bridges cross the River Foss to a two-tier balconied restaurant-cum- exhibition area where local art work from schools and adults can be displayed.

On the same side is an open-air caf with roll-down flops should the weather be inclement. Most important of all, there is space.

If York makes the wrong decision now and covers the area in concrete, then the opportunity to restore, revitalise and revive the city and create a place of great beauty will be lost, perhaps forever.

If my vision is powerful enough, then that is how I will always see the area regardless of the reality of more proposed phone shops, clothes retailers and triple-decker car parks. More important still is the notion that the more people who have this vision, then the more powerful the vision will become.

Please send your visions of how the Clifford's Tower area could be to my address and, on the first Sunday in July, we will exhibit them and go some way to making our vision come true.

All participants will receive a certificate declaring them to be positive people and proactive optimists - in short, a visionist.

Brian McCusker,

4 Hartoft Street,

York.

Updated: 09:37 Tuesday, May 02, 2006