CONGRATULATIONS and thanks are due to all those who opposed the Coppergate shopping development.

Surely the lengthy and detailed public inquiry must demonstrate to those councillors and officers at York council who supported the scheme so vigorously and cost the taxpayers so much money, that they were wrong.

Would an apology from them be in order?

Perhaps a more useful gesture from these people would be to put their support and encouragement behind the scheme to turn the area around Clifford's Tower into a public park and get rid of the hideous car park which presently ruins the setting of this historic part of York.

Chris Cook,

South Esplanade,

York.

...THE people have spoken. York citizens have achieved a wonderful thing by their comprehensive defeat of the combined forces of Land Securities and a wildly out-of-touch council on the Coppergate II issue.

Those who care about this great city can now understand the power they have at their disposal if they choose to act in unison and with tenacity.

So what now? Well, the sky's the limit. The mighty car tamed and residential streets reclaimed for the community? A city taken back from the criminal? Drug culture banished? All are possible.

The city fathers and mothers in the Guildhall must now be much more clued into what this city is all about. York isn't a shopping Mecca. Meadowhall, the Metrocentre and Thurrock Lakeside are for the tat junkies.

As for carpet baggers like Land Securities I suggest they take their short-sighted quick-buck visions somewhere else.

Let's send the message out loud and clear to the would-be polluters, corporate con-merchants and anyone else who would come to our city, foul our air, mow down our children and rip off our citizens.

Our air will be clean, our streets will be safe, and our city is not for sale.

Graham Horne,

Beech Avenue,

Bishopthorpe,

York.

...LIKE countless others I have "sat on the fence" and awaited the outcome of the Coppergate inquiry, not really too bothered about the outcome. Eleven years down the line and it has been rejected, a massive relief for the campaigners but a sad day for the city as a major investor was prepared to pump hard cash into York.

I appreciate the arguments about Clifford's Tower. It was the "shanty town" middle section of Piccadilly I was looking forward to seeing spruced up.

If Land Securities cuts its losses and calls it a day, how much longer are we going to go with this wrack and ruin excuse of a street on our doorstep?

PR Willey,

Burnholme Drive,

Heworth, York.

Updated: 10:55 Friday, September 12, 2003