York Christmas Market: 'For tourists, nothing for  locals'

I'M replying to the letter written by Alicia Short re not being able to go into my own city centre from November onwards. 
I am unable to get round the town centre once the Christmas market is set up on my mobility scooter or wheelchair.
It’s like people don’t even see me. I have a large waterproof canopy on too, so I’m not out of sight. 
M&S also is another place I’m unable to get round because things are added to freestanding shelves at the end of aisles. It’s impossible to shop in my own city. 
Yet again it’s all about the tourist!!! Nothing feels like it’s here for the locals. 
Nelly Joyce,
Backhouse St, York


...To Market to Market to buy a fat pig, unless you are a Blue Badge holder and live in York, where tourists are very welcome but you are not.
Does our council think about the effect of any rules it introduces? It doesn’t seem that way.
It’s probably easier to go to a German market and at least we will be welcome.
John Zimnoch,
Out of Towner


...I agree with all those who say that this Market goes on for too long and is of little, if any, interest to us locals! It is aimed at the tourist, end of.
Have we reached the stage of saying that York is no longer for the locals but just a “theme park” for tourists?
People in various parts of Spain and their islands are now protesting that that is the case where they live, pricing locals out of accomodation etc.
Maybe we need to protest too?
D Stuart,
Haxby


...It really has become too big and on for too long. It used to be rather nice with local firms selling really nice produce and crafts. Now it is too big, with the same vendors each year selling the same goods in each Christmas market wherever you go.
I avoid it like the plague! It ruins the town centre and turns it into a fight to get to the shops I want to go in.
I wish it could go back to how it originally was when I first came to live in York in 1996. 
Mary Ann Dearlove, 
East Mount Road, York

Read more:

*  York Christmas Market is 'out of hand' and a 'no-go area'

Making mischief...
Helen Mead’s memories of Halloween as a child carving turnips before pumpkins made me think.
As a child growing up in Poppleton we’d never heard of Halloween until the late 1960s and then only when one of the local lads came around to my uncle Fred’s house demanding ‘trick or treat’ but the reply relating to Fred’s boot and the lad’s bottom soon sent him on his way.
Growing up in Poppleton it was mischief night (Nov 4) and Bonfire night we celebrated. My parents frowned on mischief night and getting into trouble “by association”. Even when I was older and ventured to the pub I was still told to behave myself on mischief night.
D M Deamer, 
Penleys Grove Street, 
Monkgate, York

Four years of misery
You say tomato and I say tomarto, you say potato and I say potarto, or so goes that song of the past.
Do we call the whole thing off? No chance, we’ve got four years of misery if Labour ex-Tory take us gullible electorate to the cleaners in the next budget. The lucky dip to win millions might be a desperate reprieve!
Phil Shepherdson,
Woodthorpe, York

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