NO doubt York Minster will prove an inspiring setting for the Millennium Mystery Plays later this month. Hopefully it will also focus attention on a more mundane but nevertheless important matter.

As anyone used to attending concerts or other similar evening functions in the Minster or the Chapter House will know it has a major problem: unbelievably it still has no public toilets! Thus concert-goers seeking relief during the interval must leave the Minster and make the trek up High Petergate to the toilet at Bootham Bar, hardly an ideal situation, especially in winter.

I understand the Minster authorities have on a number of occasion drawn up plans for the discreet provision of toilets on the Dean's Park side of the building but so far these have inexplicably been turned down by the city planners.

With the Mystery Plays performances likely to run for more than three hours clearly toilet facilities will have to be provided for the public, presumably involving expensive hiring of blocks of mobile toilets.

One hopes therefore that this major event will provide the necessary stimulus for this long-standing problem to be finally resolved with perhaps the Minster authorities getting together with city planners to ensure their next application is acceptable so that this strange anomaly can at last be ended.

R Hudson,

Boroughbridge Road, York.