LIKE Felicity Jones (Letters, October 18), my wife and I also found the gate from Cloister Walk to Sainsbury's car park padlocked last Saturday. It was a surprise but no great inconvenience, as we could walk past the former County Hospital building and down a ramp to Sainsbury's.

But it would have been a much greater inconvenience if we had planned to get nearly two hours' "free" parking while we walked to the city centre shops.

This was the essence of the answer we were given when we asked a member of staff collecting trolleys why the gate was locked: too many motorists who aren't Sainsbury's customers are misusing the car park.

David Burnett-Hall,

Grosvenor Terrace,

York.

Updated: 09:18 Thursday, October 21, 2004