FOR some reason the council seems to have embarked on a destructive binge lately, with the cutting down of perfectly healthy, mature, well-established trees in the city.

The one in front of St Crux, one of the flowering cherries in Queen Street, one from the cholera burial ground and the complete and utter annihilation in the small area opposite Leeman Road memorial gardens, which is now a wasteland.

The tree in Queen Street admittedly had a split in the trunk, but it has been like that for years with no ill effects and no sign of falling.

On top of this authorised vandalism, the rose bushes in the Queen Street beds have been dug up.

These made a beautiful display and had only just been pruned and the beds mulched. Again, apparently done for no good reason.

If you add to this the strange idea of planting herbs, strawberries and rhubarb in the fag-end and rubbish-strewn area near the Heron shop in Stonebow, and the only conclusion I can come up with is that someone at the park’s department has seriously lost the plot!

Mrs P Witlea, De Grey Place, Bishopthorpe, York.