I HAVE been driving daily from York to Hull and notice that the travellers’ horses remain on the grass verges near Gate Helmsley.

I worked in the rural district north and east of York more than 60 years ago and know that the traditional stopping places for gipsies were on Haxby Moor, Towthorpe Moor Lane, the road between Murton and Holtby and the York–Gate Helmsley road.

The difference then was that the horses were always accompanied by one or more horse-drawn caravans they pulled.

Now the horses are on their own, untended for the greater part of the day and night and, presumably, belong to a traveller living in a motorised caravan on an approved site in the city of York.

The horse must be for trading and benefiting from free grazing on the verges of the public highway.

This should be restricted to traditional horse-drawn caravans.

Bill Heppel, Rawcliffe Lane, York.