There is a great deal of truth in the old saying that the Devil makes work for idle hands. Young people who have too little to do with their time can too easily be tempted to behave badly, particularly if they are in a group. Even if they manage to stop short of criminal behaviour, they can become a major, disruptive nuisance.

There are plenty of villages and suburbs in the Bradford district which can provide evidence of this. Residents from Queensbury to Silsden, from Denholme to Baildon, from Wibsey to Eccleshill, plagued by vandalism and rowdiness, grow desperate for something to be done to curb the anti-social activities of teenage gangs. And the young people themselves try to justify their antics by protesting that there is nowhere for them to go and nothing for them to do.

That excuse should start to wear a bit thin soon when mobile youth centres are installed in Queensbury and, shortly afterwards, in the Bolton district of Bradford. These portable, steel rooms, where teenagers can meet, talk to each other and to youth workers and drink tea or coffee, don't promise the lap of luxury.

However, heated and with seating, they are clearly a big improvement on the bus shelters that many teenage groups currently use as meeting places in wet weather - assuming they can find one that they or other "bored" teenage groups haven't smashed.

The silver "pods" are reported to have achieved good results in Manchester, where police claim that complaints of annoyance fell by 60 per cent. Let's hope that the Bradford pilot schemes enjoy similar success.