The cycle-based, anti-motorist views of Anna Semlyen are well known to readers of the letters column, but in her recent diatribe on the provision of additional parking at York District Hospital she goes too far (Letters, April 15).

Has she no sympathy at all for the disabled, temporarily incapacitated and/or ill patients, many of them elderly, some of them poor, who have to attend the hospital as outpatients on a regular basis? It would seem not for they are not even mentioned.

The bus services are useless, taxis are expensive, the ambulance arrangements are inconvenient and trying to find somewhere to park is a nightmare so the planned extension is to be heartily welcomed. No longer will drivers have to wait in queues round the hospital and along Wigginton Road with engines running or switching on and off wasting even more energy.

No more will they have to drive around and around hoping against hope for a space to open up when someone else leaves, no more will consultants' lists be disrupted because patients are late or missing, having been unable to park. They will be able to park quickly, conveniently, and if anything the quantity of emissions to the atmosphere will be reduced.

As for gridlock being caused by this development, the number of patients and visitors going to the establishment will not increase because there is more parking space nor will the number of vehicles to any marked extent, and they will be spread throughout the day so the effect at peak times will be minimal. Bearing in mind the total number of automobiles on the streets of York at any one time any increase will be insignificant.

So well done the powers-that-be, my only question is: Why have you waited so long?

D C Parker,

Moor Lane,

York

.... I am a cyclist and long before this became fashionable, I opposed the growth of road traffic - it was a factor in my decision to leave a job with the Road Research Laboratory 46 years ago.

However, people who have members of their family in hospital have more than enough anxieties and problems without being forced to walk to the bus stop, carrying whatever they are taking into hospital, wait perhaps half an hour for a bus, then walk from the Clarence Street bus stop to the District Hospital, repeating this in reverse on their way home. Nor are those with out-patient appointments generally in the peak of physical condition and able easily to take the bus.

Therefore, the expansion of the District Hospital car park should not be opposed. The very vulnerable group which uses it should be helped not hindered in facing their very real problems and Anna Semlyn of the York Cycle Campaign should be thoroughly ashamed of the letter she has written urging your readers to oppose the York NHS Trust's application for planning permission. I hope she will abandon her bigoted stance and withdraw her own objection.

Ernest Rudd,

South Parade,

York

.... do you think that York and District Hospital might be in need of a competent financial adviser? You announced that it has 1,100 patients needing cataract operations who are expected to have to wait at least 13 months from first seeing their GP (Evening Press April 15). Most of them will be in a similar situation to that of Councillor Armstrong, unable to read easily or watch TV, afraid to cross the road because of their failing eyesight, suffering a significant reduction in quality of life in their later years. And these are the people whose contributions helped to found the NHS.

The answer from the hospital spokesperson is pathetic. They would like to build a new department costing more than a million pounds for which they admit they have little chance of obtaining approval. Not long ago some patients were being referred to private hospitals under the NHS but this practice seems to have ceased. Why cannot use be made of facilities at such as the Purey Cust in York and the Belvedere at Scarborough? I'm sure that wouldn't cost a million pounds and it would certainly give some of those on the waiting list the chance of a fuller life.

Recently it was announced that the hospital planned to add an extra storey to the car park. I've forgotten how much that was going to cost, but how many patients will get better or quicker treatment following that investment? Not only that, but as Anna Semlyen points out the extra traffic will add to congestion in the city as well as increasing pollution.

Would it not be more sensible to operate a regular minibus service between the hospital and, say, the railway station or even the Park & Ride sites, so that patients and visitors would be encouraged to use public transport instead of clogging up the streets with more cars?

W H Bradley,

Allendale,

Woodthorpe,

York.

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