I SEE that there are to be no surprises in the plans for Hungate ('Riverside piazza in vision for Hungate', March 6). The plans are what one would have expected given that a housing developer has already been selected to develop this riverside plot.

Indeed, the so-called community planning weekend appears to have been contrived to produce this one outcome. There was no publicity of the programme of events, or even that there was a programme of events.

The only opportunity to discuss the different possibilities for the development of Hungate was on Friday afternoon. Unfortunately, I am one of those people who suffer under the misfortune of having to work for a living. By the time I attended the event on Saturday, it had been decided that Hungate was to be an urban village and the participants were discussing such minutiae that one almost expected people to be deciding on the colour of the bathroom suites.

As for the proposal, the stark image of the piazza is hardly sympathetic to the trees already on the bank of the Foss.

The Foss bank is an excellent area to increase the green space within York's walls. Meanwhile, I can but repeat my call for a central bus and coach station to be built on part of the site for the benefit of York as a whole.

Dr Duncan Campbell

Albemarle Road,

York.

Updated: 10:56 Monday, March 11, 2002