YORK is indeed a ghost town in the early evening as PJ Willey observes (Letters, June 29).

As a Ghost Trail guide I must admit that this is good news for the ghost walk business, which deservedly continues to flourish when everybody else has shut up shop.

It must be difficult for visitors to York with young families. After 5.30pm there is precious little for them to do. The shops close and all the tables are taken off the pavements, however sunny the evening.

There may be a PG film on if you are lucky; there may be something at the theatre (don't try August); there is one bookshop open fairly late, but no other shops apart from off-licences, and in many cases you can't take your children to a pub.

If you are very lucky you may pass a late busker in King's Square, but once you have had your evening meal there is little else to interest young people apart from skate-boarding on the Minster steps.

Like PJ Willey, I don't think parking is the problem, it is the half-hearted welcome we offer to visitors in the evenings.

Charles Hunt

Wilton Rise, York.

...MR Willey is right. You can't just blame the present incompetent council but previous, equally incompetent councils.

We have a shortage of anyone capable of realising modern workable and innovative policies which will benefit the local community. The arrogance of councillors in not listening to the people who elected them will ensure they disappear into the mediocrity they truly deserve.

This city centre is breathing its last breath. Urgent and desperate help is required to revive it before it is too late.

The council needs to listen and act. Failure to do so will be the final nail in the coffin of many city businesses.

The graffiti-ridden ghetto it is now becoming will leave a shell in the city centre with only the big chain stores surviving. What a desperately sad city it shall become.

Steve Clements,

The Legalise Cannabis Alliance,

Church Street, York.

Updated: 10:52 Thursday, July 01, 2004