THE picture of Mr Bower of St Stephens Road standing by a grass verge churned up by a 7.5 tonne First bus prompted some interesting comments (March 16).

First York's Peter McCarthy states: "I can't imagine a professional bus driver going that far off the road".

Well, Mr McCarthy, perhaps you would care to stand at the junction of Tang Hall Lane and Osbaldwick Lane and watch your drivers off-roading on such a regular basis that no grass grows on the corner, most of the paving flags are cracked and the kerbs are dislodged?

This is a situation repeated all over York simply because these polluting diesel buses are too wide for narrow residential streets.

Council officers promised a full investigation into Mr Bower's claims, I wish him luck,

Osbaldwick residents still have to share the footpaths and verges with off-roading buses, a problem that council officers concede is an intermittent occurrence which they are unwilling to do anything about.

Would Martin Revill, head of Transport Planning, explain why council officers consider the persistent over-running of footpaths and verges by overly-large buses to be acceptable?

Or is ploughing up grass verges what is meant by "green transport"?

M Warters,

Yew Tree Mews,

Osbaldwick Village,

York.

Updated: 10:09 Friday, March 26, 2004