CITY of York Council officer Peter Evely says that by reducing the capacity of the Union Terrace car park there will be a corresponding reduction in the amount of traffic in the Clarence Street, Gillygate and Lord Mayor's Walk area (January 12).

How will this happen?

Drivers who cannot park in a reduced capacity Union Terrace will be forced back on to the highway to find an alternative car park.

And are not a large proportion of the users of Union Terrace car park staff and/or visitors to York District Hospital (where parking is woefully inadequate) or heath trust headquarters at Bootham Park?

Peter implies that most traffic in that area is using Union Terrace car park. Has he tried to drive from the Haxby Road/Wigginton Road junction to Bootham Bar at any time between 7.30am and 7.30pm? Very little traffic enters the car park yet there is a constant bottleneck of vehicles travelling extremely slowly along Gillygate towards Bootham.

Vehicles leaving Union Terrace are invariably trying to break into existing congestion.

The council argues that there "are enough (car parking) spaces within the city".

But for how much longer?

Union Terrace has now lost 258 spaces. Tanner Row is soon to close with the loss of another 300. There is every possibility that the Barbican redevelopment will also incur a loss of parking and another 300-plus spaces would be lost when Castle car park makes way for Coppergate II.

By my reckoning, something approaching 30 per cent of public parking is about to be lost.

That is a figure that no right-minded person could allow, and will only encourage 'cowboy' parking anywhere, anyhow, and convince city centre traders that the city is being turned into a ghost town.

David Gulliver,

Highthorn Road,

Huntington, York.

Updated: 10:27 Wednesday, January 30, 2002