UNLIKE towns in southern Europe, British cities die a death at about 5.30pm. There’s a good reason, of course.

Our shops close at precisely the same time our continental neighbours are reopening for the evening.

Having more to do at night than just go to the pub certainly makes Mediterranean cities more vibrant, but the vexed question is how to make ours more inviting after dark.

A City of York Council-led task group reckons one easy fix would be to abolish charges at the authority’s car parks from 5pm.

We welcome this initiative and hope the council understands that benefits from free city-centre car parking for residents will outweigh the loss in revenue.

We also think the group’s recommendation to introduce more late-night shopping is a good idea and would help to give York more of an evening buzz.

However, we don’t welcome their suggestion that measures should be considered to cut city-centre speed limits for streets with high pedestrian use and to introduce 20mph limits earlier than planned.

We are perturbed because we do not believe in a blanket approach to speed limits. It is also of concern that the group had no remit to discuss them, nor have any studies been carried out since it was set up.

Then there is the issue of policing new speed limits, which would presumably mean yet more cameras in an already camera-heavy world.

Haven’t we enough intrusions in our lives without adding to them?