WHAT has the city council got against the Gillygate area? It was subjected to years of planning blight by a mad plan to put an urban motorway through our ancient city.

Gillygate has pulled itself up again to become an enjoyable place to be for locals and visitors alike, with the Union Terrace car and coach park an unintended legacy of the road scheme.

And we shouldn’t forget that to leave that legacy the council evicted people from their much-loved family homes, as we have been reminded in previous letters to The Press.

Now they want to sell the land to York St John University. Do politicians ever think about the misery they cause ordinary people with these big schemes?

To judge from their apparent determination to close Union Terrace, it seems not.

It is all very well to claim the new building will create jobs, but how many jobs will be lost when the small businesses lose such a big chunk of their customers?

It also seems incomprehensible that York St John’s has so little idea of good neighbourliness.

Like some medieval baron, it is determined to extend its castle and doesn’t care if the local serfs don’t like it.

Ann Holt, Portland Street, York.

• I OBJECT to the proposed sale of the Union Terrace car park to St John’s University on the following grounds:

a) There has been no consultation with traders in the area who benefit from the users of this car park or indeed with residents who park there

b) There will be a reduction in the number of coaches visiting the city

c) The subsequent loss of footfall and therefore trade in Gillygate

d) The reduction in the number of coaches will result in loss of business all over the city

e) Breaking the promise made by the council that car park spaces would not be reduced

f) The site being sold at less than a fair price

g) The loss of regular income to the council from parking fees

h) The loss of businesses and subsequently jobs in the area affected

i) No detailed studies are available showing the effect of this proposal on traders

j) No reports are available as to the benefits to the city if the proposal was to go ahead.

Union Terrace is an excellent car park, convenient when shopping in the area or visiting the Theatre and is a useful overflow for the hospital.

David Mothersdale, Elmfield Terrace, York.

• I WROTE a letter a month ago about the car park sell-off in which I asked whether any analysis was done of the likely effect on the businesses in Gillygate.

A figure of 100 new jobs has been quoted, but how many jobs will be lost? As far as I can see, the council has commissioned a report that only looked at the benefits of selling, and has failed entirely to consider the impact on shops locally.

Is this because the Labour Party is blinkered to the employment provided by private business?

I suppose when the businesses fail in Gillygate, the university can always buy them up to and move departments along the road; perhaps that’s the long-term plan.

Clive Tiney, Towthorpe Road, Haxby.

• IT IS with dismay that I read the citizens of York once again are dismissed by the council over the Union Terrace car park.

It would seem that the fate of the of the said car park had all ready been decided before it was brought to the public notice.

Why should the university take precedence over the citizens of York when there are plenty of other places they could build?

I and many others like myself think this is a disgrace and will be the death knell to all the businesses in and around Gilligate.

Does the council ever listen to the people who pay the rates and their salaries? I doubt it.

Wendy Blanchard, Huntington Road, York.