I have never ever seen our beautiful, historic city of York looking as dirty and rubbish-strewn as it does now.

When, if ever, is City of York Council going to do something about it? And I don’t just mean the streets and places tourists might visit, but anywhere within 100 yards of the city centre.

I have gone out every single morning in all weather and during all seasons picking up rubbish - the vast majority of it dropped by selfish people.

A huge amount is thrown along the River Foss in the water and along its banks - an example is the area around the memorial to Caroline Stuttle behind Coppergate where bottles, cans, plastic food containers, cardboard, plastic bags and other rubbish is dumped. Recently brown rats have started coming onto the paths for food from these discarded containers.

Further round into the car park at Clifford’s Tower and actually on the grass bank of the monument itself again there are large amounts of rubbish which never seems to get removed.

Once you cross over the road to where the bus stop is at the entrance to St George’s Field there is a massive amount of rubbish that has literally been dumped into the hedgerows and flowerbeds.

I want to invite a local councillor along with a Press reporter/photographer to join me early one morning soon so I can show you exactly how our city has literally been blighted and turned into a disgusting state. It never ever used to be like this.

I don’t want to hear about financial issues. The council always seems to find money for all kinds of ‘events’ so please don’t ignore this.

Sean Atkinson, Gillygate, York

  • Editor’s note: The Press will be happy to join Mr Atkinson on a litter tour, if a local councillor will also take part

 

The 'Marie Celeste' of York pubs

In Saturday’s Press (April 6) the article on page 13 - ‘Village pub bought by local community’ - drew my attention.

For a fleeting moment I thought the report was referring to the Blacksmith’s Arms pub by the A19 at Skelton, and not the Black Lion at Skelton-on-Ure.

Wrong ‘black’! I think of the former as the ‘Marie Celeste’ of pubs - a mystery.

I wonder if inside there are half-drunk pints, partially nibbled packets of salted peanuts, fossilised pork scratchings and a few bar stools at crazy angles.

Derek Reed, Middlethorpe Drive, York

 

A use for empty shops

It was great to see the book fair at the Friends Meeting House from 2.30pm to 4.30pm on Saturday.

The event was a chance to discover new writers.

Many of the writings were self published and it was great for them to find an outlet to show their work. Many bookshops are now reluctant to take on and stock books by unknown authors.

In my previous letters I have moaned on about the amount of empty shops.

Sometimes to fill shops the Government backs things like Street Life for a while, until the owners of a shop find somebody else to take over the lease. This also gave the opportunity to do courses in printing.

Maybe something similar could be done with the book fair?

Timothy Wynn Werninck, Dodgson Terrace, Acomb

 

Ring road one-way trial?

Alex Groves suggests (Letters, April 5) that the inner ring road be repurposed as a one-way system, allowing traffic to flow along two lanes.

Perhaps we should first have a trial period, for heavy traffic only.

David Martin, Rosedale Avenue, Acomb