ONCE again another group of people's jobs are in the balance with the proposed closure of what we all know as Vickers Instruments.

From the start of the 1980s, beginning with Redfearn Glass, York has spiralled down to being a city with no manufacturing industry.

The loss of these jobs has destroyed the employment balance within the city. What has grown up in its place, is a tourism-based service industry, with most people on the statutory minimum wage. And this has come at a time, when because of York's "honey-pot" image, house prices have risen above the national average, and the only people who can now afford to buy property here, are the privileged few.

Long gone seem to be the days, when one could get an apprenticeship, find a steady job, buy a house and raise a family. Now the jobs go abroad to folk who then return here as tourists. The real money goes into the pockets of the "fat cats", and our glass blowers are expected to become chambermaids!

Gillian Cruddas may be doing cartwheels over the tourism awards that have come our way, but at what cost? I almost feel ashamed to be called a "Yorkie"; linked to a city that has "sold its birthright for a mess of pottage".

Steven Bailey, Anderson Grove, York.