NO wonder York’s council tax is so high. We had a mayor a few years ago, can’t remember her name, but she rode a bicycle. Fab. And good on her, I say.

Yet the new mayor has to go and buy himself a £60,000 limo. What was wrong with the old limo? It can’t have done many miles.

In these austere times my wife drives an 18-year-old Astra every day. It’s all we can afford thanks to the cost of living, council tax, etc.

It makes me so cross when I read that a bloke has retired after 16 years at the council, to be replaced by a temp for four months at £3,000 per week.

They had 16 years to think about this. Why didn’t anybody start the recruitment process six months ago?

Somebody must be accountable for this oversight.

Jim Thompson, Broadway, Fulford, York.

• The Lord Mayor states he would like to raise £60,000 for charity during his year in office. He has it available in one fell swoop: forfeit the new limousine and use the money for the charity.

There’s also the subject of the proposal for the St Leonard’s council offices being converted into a luxury hotel. How many more hotels do we need in York and where will the guests and staff members park?

In view of the lack of decent accommodation, it would be a good idea to convert a big chunk of the buildings into homes for residents in desperate need of somewhere suitable to live instead of families having to camp out in one room or live in uninhabitable, damp or dangerous places. Surely the many hotels in York cannot be full to capacity all the time, so it could be that a hotel on the scale reported would end up as a white elephant sprawled along a busy thoroughfare. Just think how many people could be housed in that area.

Janet S Kitchen-Cooper, Ashley Park Road, York.