I THOUGHT I had read everything there was to be written about the Lendal Bridge closure. Then I read the two-day “debate” in The Press (February 25 and 26).

That confirmed it. In order to make the exercise more bearable I did a bit of sub-editing. In five cases I easily reduced the text by a third. Such superfluity would not be tolerated in the letters pages.

Fiery Frank Wood put the case for the opposition without compromise, chucking his arguments at the council like so many well-aimed half bricks. This made his fellow travellers seem unctuous by comparison.

Speaking for the prohibitionists, Nik Brown’s cool assessment was a model of economy and clarity: the perfect foil.

Statistics were assembled with impressive Thatcher-like precision, but without the mind-bending rigour.

How delightful and encouraging to learn that “a pedestrian inhabits about one square metre, and less when two are holding hands”. And on this, the most fought-over bridge since the Second World War.The arguments seem nicely balanced.

The debate is over. I look forward to casting my vote.

William Dixon Smith, Welland Rise, Acomb, York.

 

• THE Lendal Bridge trial is supposedly ending this month.

The revenue accrued from this venture appears to have been lucrative considering that most of the fines have been issued to visitors.

But £600,000 of the revenue has been offset for the administration costs, which were dealt with by a company nowhere near York.

Obviously we don’t have anyone in the city capable of doing the job. But now even though the trial is coming to an end, the council wishes to keep the restrictions in place so they can assess the impact on the scheme. Why?

Maybe they should ask the many tourists about the impact it had on their wallets, or better still ask the residents for their opinion.

But maybe the council doesn’t want to reopen the bridge as it was before, and this is just a stalling tactic.

Surely our councillors wouldn’t do anything like that, would they?

S McClaren, Boroughbridge Road, York.