WE have read your many letters in the Evening Press concerning Coppergate II and wish to raise the following points:

1 This is a planning process and therefore there should be no consideration of extra business rates, land disposals or ground rents.

2 The sole consideration should be what is right for this distinguished historic city for the next 200 years.

3 The land around the Castle should be a magnificent open space without the car park and the subject of an immediate application for Lottery funding. It should be one of the most splendid sites in northern Europe and would attract shoppers, inward investment and tourism.

4 There is no question that Piccadilly can be viably developed on its own for retail/replacement car parking/housing/offices (we are in close contact with three developers who have confirmed this) without delay or opposition. Any talk of any scheme being the only chance is simply not right. To build shops between Clifford's Tower and the Foss would be more lucrative but that is irrelevant.

5 To continually refer back to the 1991 planning brief is to undermine consideration of all the planning criteria now and an excuse for a planning decision. It would have been unreasonable to expect the residents of York to give detailed consideration back in 1991 to anything other than a fully publicised detailed planning application.

6 There is no democratic public decision process for planning except at Planning Committee level. This is why group block voting on a non-political issue is incomprehensible and why we should pay tribute to Councillors Wilde and Dean who voted objectively in the face of apparent political pressure.

7 The only two polls that were open to the public, and not conducted by an organisation with a vested interest, were those conducted by the Evening Press. In its telephone poll only 210 people bothered to pick up the telephone over several days to vote for Coppergate II.

8 This proposed scheme does not lie within the city centre shopping area - if it did it would be good news for York. It is a proposed elongation at one end and will undermine our historic city.

J Arnott, Senior Officer and

M Cross, Treasurer,

York Chamber of Trade,

Stonegate, York.

...EVEN if a public inquiry into Coppergate Riverside is granted it does in no way guarantee a successful outcome for objectors. That is why the campaign must continue.

Meanwhile there is an opportunity to consider what could replace the Land Securities scheme if the verdict was a favourable one.

What sort of city do we want?

Emphatically not a Mediterranean theme park, as suggested by some of your correspondents.

Do we need:

- Affordable housing in the city centre?

- An extension to the Castle Museum?

- A permanent performing arts centre?

- A central alternative food store?

- A replacement for the art gallery?

- An opportunities centre for young people?

- A smaller multi-storey car park (or none at all)?

- More riverside restaurants?

- More open recreational space?

How can a redevelopment of Piccadilly be integrated with the regeneration of the whole of the Fossgate, Walmgate, Navigation Road area?

Should Piccadilly itself become a tree-line entrance to the south of the city, with views through to the Foss and the Castle, or a canyon of high-rise buildings reminding us of Rougier Street?

We should be raising these issues now. Remember a solution is still possible.

Philip Crowe,

York Tomorrow,

Stonegate, York.

...DO you think York has the generosity of spirit to formally remember the 1190 persecution of its Jews in the re-development around Clifford's Tower?

Ian Wormald,

The Hollies,

Elvington, York.

Updated: 11:33 Thursday, February 15, 2001