HOW touching to read of the outstanding progress Mandy Brunskill's autistic son, Liam, has made in residential care (August 30).

We have a severely autistic son who is uncontrollable and we find it a hard fact to take that the Glen respite home in York has had to make a reduction of six days care a year because of council cutbacks.

City of York Council seem to have no trouble finding £4,000 a week to fund Liam's education. That's more than enough to compensate for the six-day closure of the Glen.

We assume that since Liam has made such progress, he will now be more controllable and therefore take up a place at the state-of-the-art Applefields Special School in York, and somebody else may get the chance to receive the specialist care which Liam has this past year.

If people such as Mandy Brunskill weren't forcing the council's hand and using taxpayers' money to give her a better quality of life, then one day we may have enough funds available to build a residential school such as Doncaster's Wilsic Hall here in York. Until then the rest of us will have to look after our own children regardless of how difficult they are to control.

A G and D E Priestman,

Hull Road, York.

Updated: 09:49 Friday, September 02, 2005