SIR - I must challenge Philip Davies (Letters, November 22) when he asserts the police seatbelt campaign is a "wrong priority". Our current initiative is directly linked to the DTI's "Think" campaign, which concentrates on a different contributory element of bad driver behaviour each month.

This month it is the wearing of seat belts. Last year 160 deaths were directly attributable to not wearing seat belts.

In 2000, 3,409 people died and 38,155 people were seriously injured on our roads, a major human tragedy. In addition government figures calculate a fatal collision "costs" £847,000 and serious collisions £97,000.

Road collisions cost the nation's taxpayers billions. If only one per cent of that came to my budget I could put out dozens more officers catching criminals in Bradford.

West Yorkshire Police are working harder than ever to arrest criminals here in Bradford.

Our successful Street Crime initiative, our "Crackdown" drugs campaign and our autumn burglary project, all evidence of our efforts in these priority areas. The latest "Target" four-day initiative has resulted in 41 arrests across my division.

We will continue to police the roads, which in my division has seen a 13 per cent reduction in fatal and serious collisions and helped us to meet this right priority.

Chief Supt Phil Read, Divisional Commander, Bradford North Police.

SIR - I agree 100 per cent with Joan Foulds's letter of November 21. We have told the Council and Yorkshire Forward about inequalities of the Newlands SRB and were promised a full investigation.

If as stated by Councillor Eaton a full investigation was carried out, why have the investigating team not interviewed people and groups who made allegations?

Until this is done it is a complete whitewash and the people still in power at Newlands are still not doing things in a democratic manner.

J R Smith (Bradford North Alliance), Flawith Drive, Fagley.

SIR - Mrs Henry, of employment law specialist Last Cawthra, is right to highlight the lack of clarity of workplace stress legislation under the Health and Safety at Work Act (T&A, October 26).

If she reads the T&A website articles about Derrick Bruce, of Allerton, dated January 5, 2001 and April 30, 2001, she might be as surprised as I was that Derrick Bruce's trade union made no use of the fact that his employer had already been found to be in breach of regulations 3, 4 and 8 of the Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1992 in respect of workplace stress in September 1999 (see New Civil Engineer article dated October 14, 1999 "Agency breaches health and safety rules" on www.nceplus.co.uk) following my complaint to the Health and Safety Executive in 1998.

The problem highlighted in the T&A articles referred to could have been resolved by Christmas 1999 if Unison had made effective use of the "stress" breaches published in my professional journal, New Civil Engineer.

Michael Ryan, Gains Avenue, Bicton Heath, Shrewsbury.

SIR - Here we go again! Yet another faceless appointment by Bradford Vision: A Peace Ambassador at a nauseating salary of £60,000. The Government appears to have more money than sense.

I wish we could all be informed where these quangos come from and how these people get these expensive jobs which don't appear to achieve anything.

Still, if anything needs to sum up the state of Bradford, it is surely the sad fact we actually need a Peace Ambassador.

Barry Foster, Gilstead Lane, Gilstead.

SIR - It is to be hoped, by the time you publish this, that those vital members of our community, the firefighters, will have made those less-than-vital members of our community, the politicians, see sense.

The unedifying spectacle of our well-liked local MP Chris Leslie (above) being ritually taken apart because he's been lumbered with the job of trying to defend New Labour's ludicrous posturing over this has not made happy TV viewing.

It was strong trade union backing which was vital to Chris's selection in 1997 by our local party. Since then his masters appear to have had it in for him by teaming him up with Lord (Millennium Dome) Falconer and now presenting him with this poisoned chalice despite the 40 per cent pay rise incentive!

May I suggest a sideways ministerial move to either Jim Hacker's Department of Administrative Affairs or John Cleese's Ministry of Silly Walks.

Best of all, why not a return to the back benches where he can sit at the feet of true Labour and learn from the likes of Alice Mahon and Ann Cryer, both of whom have actually been in the real workplace and know what it is to graft for a living.

Sid Brown, Glenhurst Road, Shipley.

SIR - I refer to your "Ad Attack" supplement (November 18) and the excellent advertisements produced by young Bradford pupils. This is a much-needed fillip for local education against the recent scenario of closing/torched/vandalised schools and reports of declining standards, reducing the city to a pitiful level in the league tables.

The pupils' efforts remind me of my own early years at Swain House School during the last war (1940-42), when the late, great Mr Albert Whitehead was art master. I remember producing a couple of war-time morale-boosting posters at his behest - one urging "Dig for Victory" and the other the collection of bones to make glue (though I was never quite sure of the purpose of the latter!).

May I take this opportunity to extol his unique versatility. He was a master of calligraphy, Dales dialect poet. He invented the stirrup-pump for emptying air-raid shelters of rain-water, introduced bee-keeping and silk-worms to the school for the delectation and education of his charges, played the piano/organ and Friday afternoons usually ended with a film show under his direction.

We shall not see his like again.

Derek Mozley, Moorhead Terrace, Shipley.

SIR - Funny, it was only ten years ago that Local Management of Schools came in. No longer was everything to be controlled by a faceless central bureaucracy. Instead, headteachers (with their governing bodies) would have their own cheque book, manage all who worked at the school and thus at last be able to change their own light bulbs.

The guiding principle was to decentralise authority and on the whole it has worked.

At a stroke PFI (Private Finance Initiative) will make all that a golden memory. Once again a distant bureaucracy will run the light-bulb department and many others, only this time the trusty bumbledum of the old LEA will be replaced by distrust of the profit motive.

In Bradford's case, with the LEA itself already privatised, there should be some fine old scraps over just how many light bulbs a school really needs.

So just as schools are beginning to exploit the full potential of self-management, PFI will make a bonfire of the concept. Hence its true meaning: Previous Freedoms Incinerated.

Jim Flood, Redburn Drive, Shipley.

SIR - During a recent visit to Undercliffe Cemetery to pay my respects to a deceased family member, I was appalled to see dog owners walking around the cemetery, with dogs unleashed. Two of these dogs urinated on graves.

Please can they show respect for the dead and find an alternative dog walk.

Mrs Wilkinson, Green Lane, Idle.

SIR - The Anthony Nolan Trust is looking for readers who want to run in their team in the 2003 Flora London Marathon. The Trust wants runners (those with an entry as well as those still needing a place) to contact them and help in the fight against leukaemia.

The marathon takes place on April 13 and application forms and race details can be obtained by calling (01865) 875757 or e-mailing: running@anthonynolan.org.uk.

This year the trust's marathon team raised £260,000.

Paul Rushton, marathon co-ordinator, Anthony Nolan Trust, Crown Road, Wheatley, Oxfordshire.