Problems arising from City of York Council policies which favour new development above protection of our natural environment generate much correspondence between the York Natural Environment Trust (YNET) and the council.

Unfortunately, we experience enormous difficulty in getting timely and conclusive responses.

The following important issues are outstanding and in some, time is of the essence:

Pollution of the River Ouse by contaminated water from the Northern Gateway park and ride side.

Possible council bias in the conduct of the Coppergate II planning process.

Health and safety of school children using St Nicholas' Fields.

Discrepancies in information provided by the council in its funding bid for the Northern Gateway scheme.

The need to carry out promised consultation on the Foss-side Hungate development before negotiating a scheme with Land Securities.

Typically, our letters are ignored for several weeks, necessitating a reminder. We then often get a holding letter, apologising and giving administrative error as a reason for delay.

The substantive reply, when (if) finally it comes, is likely to avoid the issue or give misleading answers. Only rarely are responses satisfactory.

Not all officers are guilty and some of the most busy are also the most helpful. Senior officers however are frequent culprits.

The Chief Executive holds the record, having taken ten weeks to reply and then not done what he was asked!

YNET asks penetrating questions and it must sometimes be difficult for officers to explain satisfactorily things that council policies have caused them to do. Their defensive delay and obfuscation however, is getting in the way of the effective dialogue YNET so badly wants and York so badly needs, if our natural environment is to be safeguarded.

Barry Potter,

Chairman,

YNET,

Knapton Lane,

Acomb,

York.

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.