IT SEEMS City of York Council may not have learned from Derwenthorpe, where it was in serious trouble for privately favouring a local housing association instead of obtaining the best possible price for assets belonging to local taxpayers (The Press, June 23).

It appears to be making exactly the same mistake at Clarence Street car/coach park. An established business which generates an income of £400,000 with minimal running costs is worth far more than £2 million pounds.

Any valuer will tell you the rule of thumb that such a business should be worth at least ten times the annual return; so £4 million pounds is the correct starting guide price for any negotiations with potential buyers.

However much City of York Council might wish to help the University of York St John in its expansion plans, it cannot do private deals to sell the university strategic blocks of land at knock-down prices. The council has an obligation to obtain the best possible return on valuable real estate. If the college must have that site then it must outbid all other potential buyers.

Matthew Laverack, Architect of this parish, Lord Mayor’s Walk, York.

• WITH reference to Union Terrace coach park; might one suggest a bus station for York.

Again for the site, why do new projects and planning new buildings have to include the university, transport routes and student accommodation? What about asking the people in the street for their opinions concerning York’s future, so when anybody enquires about the bus station we can direct them?

If Selby and Malton can achieve this, why can’t York?

I’m not anti-university, we are all students one way or another, but build with character. Oxford, Cambridge, Durham student areas are lovely; York’s at Heslington is like something from the last war.

PE Foulds, Thirlmere Drive, Heworth, York.

• I HAD to read it twice to convince myself I had read it correctly. Closing a coach and car park to make way for another university building, a second time, it can’t be true.

I thought we were in need of visitors and welcomed them, it does not look that way from where I am standing. The shops and cafes in Gillygate have real need to complain.

And what difference does James Alexander think new paving, lighting and bins is going to make? They don’t go shopping, but maybe the workmen would welcome a coffee.

Then there is the proposed building, what shape is that going to take, surely not a repeat of the ugly one now standing at the corner of Lord Mayor’s Walk?

One question I would like to ask is, how come the university gets everything it wants irrespective of the impact on the citizens of York who have lived, worked and spent their money all their lives in this city?

Come on Mr Alexander, get yourself a new thinking cap and spare a thought for these people for whom this city is their home.

BM Horsley, Raven Grove, Acomb, York.