WHEN the Northern Gateway Park and Ride was being subjected to the "normal conditions and consultation" referred to by Councillor Smallwood (August 31), the then head of planning John Rigby briefed the councillors wrongly by asserting that the greater traffic flows from the north of York were on the A19.

After protest he apologised for this error to his councillors at the public meeting and confirmed that the main traffic flows into York from the north are in fact along the A59. Thus the local councillors who were present at those meetings, including Quentin Macdonald, have been aware for some time that the most logical and most necessary place for a Park and Ride is indeed on the A59.

Despite over 460 detailed objections, the council pursued an illogical course of siting the Northern Gateway on the A19 such that all the A59 traffic now has to crawl across the bridges to reach the site.

Far from being "a back door attempt to site a Park and Ride in the vicinity", anyone involved in the Northern Gateway process and indeed anyone who read the local transport plan and the recent glossy Transport Options consultation knows that the council is rightly intent on locating a Park and Ride on the A59 .

This issue will provide the people of York with a chance to see if the new inner cabinet and scrutiny committees are any more effective in dealing with the siting of controversial Park and Ride sites than people power.

Watch this space or rather watch any open space near the A59!

Derek Paterson,

Ings View,

Shipton Road,

York.