Letters to the Editor

Although there is no panacea to solve our problems, I believe the answer lies in treating our young with respect, giving them a sense of identity, and allowing them to contribute to society.

The politicians can help - not by offering solutions aimed primarily at winning votes, but by providing opportunities that show the consequences of anti-social behaviour and give our youth a chance.

Someone suggested we bring back national conscription. I don't disagree. Two years in the armed forces would benefit some, but I feel the solution needs to offer support to the wider community.

Let them spend two years, after school or university, in providing services for society, or the environment.

Give them opportunities to support the elderly, work with the police and emergency services, and clean up city centres and public places from litter and graffiti.

The lessons learned would remain with them throughout life and make it a safer and more pleasant country for everyone.

Mike Denison, Woodland Grove. Bradford 9

SIR - If there is such a high demand for retail space in Bradford city centre, then surely the construction of the Broadway centre is a good thing and there should be no shortage of retailers wanting units.

I can't see how retail units at the Leisure Exchange would affect shops in the city centre. All it's doing is bringing more shops into Bradford and creating more choice.

Empty shops in the city centre, such as the former Lostboys store and Houseworks, may also benefit from the demand for retail units.

Things seem to be looking up for Bradford with the news that so many retailers want to move into the city.

I am sure that things can only get better and that in a few years' time Bradford will have moved up the table of the country's top shopping centres.

Jack MacPherson, Killinghall Road, Bradford 3.

SIR - Once again we have a report of youngsters vandalising a building site, thieving, and intimidating workmen. This in addition to the constant reports of violence and intimidation on various estates.

Neither humans nor animals are born with a sense of discipline, as the animal world recognises. Child immunity to reasonable discipline has not eradicated child abuse. It is, however, producing more and more young people devoid of any sense of decent behaviour. The young grow up.

I wonder if the do-gooders who have brought about this situation have the sense to realise, for instance, why teachers are in short supply?

Mrs E Simpson, Manscombe Road, Allerton.

SIR - The fear of crime and recent high-profile cases appear to have persuaded Trevor Williams-Berry (T&A, February 19) that crime in Bradford is worse than it is.

On a per capita basis, Manchester has six times Bradford's count of robberies, three times the number of violent crimes and more than twice the number of thefts of motor vehicles. Middlesbrough has twice Bradford's number of sexual offences, while Hull has over 70 per cent more burglaries and 60 per cent more thefts from motor vehicles.

Neither the police nor the police authority is complacent about the levels of crime, but they need proper financial resources to fight crime. Mr Williams-Berry suggests we learn from New York, where there is one police officer for every 197 residents compared with West Yorkshire's one to 434 residents.

Tony Blair's Government has been sadly lacking in providing resources. In West Yorkshire there are 300 fewer officers than there were in 1997, although the police element of council tax has risen by 43 per cent in the same period.

Councillor Clive Richardson, Member of West Yorkshire Police Authority (Conservative, Thornton Ward), Bront Old Road, Thornton.

SIR - May I voice my disgust at the recent theft of a wind ornament that was outside my flat on a trellis with some plants. It was only a plastic windmill, which cost a few pence at the shop.

We are all pensioners in this locality, and are often targeted by petty thieves who realise we are a most vulnerable section of our society, and are easy to rob.

We have to withstand, as well, being robbed by the Government of a decent adequate pension.

I curse and rebuke these misfits who steal from us locally.

Is it a crime to wish to make the outside gardens and frontages nice to look at?

H T Medley, Broadfield Close, Bradford 4.

SIR - We very much welcome your Comment in the T&A on February 16. As it said, we should all try to minimise the amount of waste we generate and throw away. In Bradford district we currently throw away 180,000 tonnes of waste a year that is transported to landfill sites in Leeds and Burnley.

Manufacturers also have their part to play by reducing the amount of packaging they use and manufacturing products that can be repaired or easily recycled if broken beyond repair.

People in Bradford are very enthusiastic about recycling and that is where we need Council support. The Council must take advantage of our enthusiasm by introducing district-wide kerbside collections of paper, glass, cans, textiles, kitchen and garden waste.

The easier we make recycling, the more popular it will be. Other local authorities in England are already recycling more than 30 per cent of their waste. Bradford recycles a meagre eight per cent.

Incineration is the last thing we want in Bradford. Not only would it endanger our health, it would require huge amounts of waste to feed it, so destroying the message to produce less waste in the first place.

Tim Gunhouse (Action For A Sustainable Bradford), Shipley Fields Road, Shipley

SIR - Re the roadworks on Cottingley New Road at the junction with Manor Road. Perhaps "roadworks" is the wrong word, as I have observed very little "work" for quite some time.

The place is a shambles and has been thus for several months. Just what is supposed to be happening there? When work first began, the general idea looked promising; improve the sight lines for traffic turning out of Manor Road on to Cottingley New Road, improve access to Nab Wood School and the health club, and generally improve the traffic flow up Cottingley New Road.

Sadly everything has ground to a halt. Why? The place is an eyesore, and from a pedestrian's point of view with various pipes and rubble strewn around, extremely dangerous. Is anybody bothered? Does anyone care? Who is in charge?

At the rate the "work" is progressing, the Bingley relief road will be up and running long before this current mess has been sorted.

John Ibbotson, Crownest Road, Bingley.

SIR - For many young Pakistani men growing up in Bradford, I expect there is a stark similarity between the FBI's hunt for Al Qaeda operatives in Pakistan and West Yorkshire Police's hunt for perpetrators of the Bradford riots last summer.

The use of grand titles like Operation Wheel will sound suspiciously like Operation Enduring Freedom. The exultant references to "Britain's largest criminal investigation" and to the publication of 180 photos (of mainly young Pakistani males) in poster campaigns all smack of the FBI's recent battle against international terrorism.

Has anybody perhaps wondered what such things might mean for ordinary, young, law-abiding Pakistani men growing up in Bradford? Well, I expect feelings like "the whole world hates us" naturally suggest themselves. Is it any wonder these young men feel alienated from British society?

While there is, of course, an obvious and legitimate responsibility to arrest those who have clearly fallen foul of the law, I am concerned that local media and the local authorities, in their clumsiness, are further alienating innocent sections of the Pakistani community as Bradford's drive for its own brand of "Infinite Justice".

Sohail Karmani, Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates.

SIR - Jagtar Sahota rightly feels "sick and tired" of being labelled as Asian, when as an Indian he feels labelled or categorised through the disgraceful and inexcusable actions of others.

For years I have worked alongside people with Indian and Pakistani backgrounds. I attend a gym which has members of different cultures. My experience is that people of different cultures and colour can, do and will work and live alongside each other with few problems if they are allowed to get on with it.

The Bradford riots were not race riots. They were an excuse for a large group of people who saw an opportunity to cause injury and destruction, for one reason: they believed they could get away with it.

Bradford, and those people responsible for Bradford, need to act forcefully to bring back the impression that it is the authorities and law-abiding people who run the city, and not those people who have the loudest voice, the biggest stick, or who hide behind either politics or colour.

D Bartle, Worple Way, Harrow, Middlesex.

SIR - I am 34 years old and have been working for the past 11 years. I feel disgusted to see that taxes are being raised by the Council/police because of the unfortunate disturbances we faced last year.

Why should we have to suffer due to the small minority of thugs and ill-educated people who have no consideration for the future of Bradford?

I feel the rise is unjust and unfair where the police are wasting money on bad management and over-spending on small crime prevention initiatives rather than employing proper policing to combat crime.

I feel we have a failing police authority with the support of a failing council. I work in the Kirklees area and we should learn from other authorities as to how they manage their establishments rather than waste our resources.

Javaid Khan, Parsonage Road, West Bowling, Bradford.

SIR - The article on the rise and rise of Seabrooks Crisps was very interesting. What it left out, though, was that Seabrooks started to make crisps commercially in the cellar of the Co-op at the top of Lyndhurst Street, up Leeds Road (it is now the only bit of building still remaining on that block and it is opposite the DSS).

I know this because we lived at 554 Leeds Road (our front room is now the entrance/exit to the petrol station there) and we could overlook the yard at the back of the Co-op. I used to love to hang out of the toilet window and smell the crisps being made, and occasionally they would give us a batch that probably was not "up to scratch"!

I still think that Seabrooks make the best crisps.

Phil Boase, Elizabeth Street, Wyke.

SIR - The videos distributed to the Council tenants about Stock Transfer did not tell them all they should know.

The meeting at West Ward Labour Club was very interesting indeed. After five years the banks want their money back for lending to these companies for doing up council houses.

But what happened in Barnsley after five years? The rents had to go up rapidly. Now, according to the meeting, 200 houses are boarded up.

The same thing will happen over here. If the transfer goes through, the Council don't have to pay back what they owe. It's scrubbed.

So get to know as much as you can. There's always two sides to a story. Use your vote wisely.

Mrs D Woodruff, Rawlestone Rise, Greengates.

SIR - I would like to reply to Mr J Hall (Letters, February 20) about ID cards. I can't understand his reasoning because the very things he says might happen, can happen whether we have a smart card or not.

The Government can pass any law they want, and we can't do anything about it. They don't even ask us. If the EU passes a law, it overrules ours. Try buying a pound of bananas. The EU says you can't.

Leeds supporters were not allowed into the stadium in Holland recently because they hadn't brought their passports. Now if they had had a smart card they could probably have got in.

Mr Hall may think he is not living now in a police state, but this country is not as free as he thinks. He couldn't get away with many of the things they do in France and America etc. We do not have a civilian charter.

N Brown, Peterborough Place, Undercliffe.

SIR - I live in Bradford city centre and like many other residents have become increasingly alarmed at the lack of good-quality retail and leisure services.

By stopping companies coming into Bradford, the Council is doing nothing to improve confidence in the city centre.

If you have companies coming into the city, you are bound to attract more business. If you stop companies coming to Bradford, you will have less business. It is a simple rule of business, surely?

The Leisure Exchange is in the city centre and if shops had been placed there, it would have attracted more people to the area and some of the visitors to the Leisure Exchange would surely go on to visit our other city centre shops.

The people who manage our city centre need to be a lot more decisive and bold to ensure that other shops do not close, increasing the area of desolation which is Bradford city centre.

Daniel Penn, Manor Row, Bradford 1

SIR - I was shocked to hear that the Shipley Area Panel seems to think that Shipley East does not require neighbourhood renewal funding - or so it would seem from its decision not to allocate any of this funding to the ward.

Many localities are seriously deprived, and the statistics support this personal observation:

l Unemployment almost double the district average in Bolton Woods and West Royd.

l Above average levels of burglary rising to three times the district average in parts of West Royd.

l In Windhill, West Royd and Bolton Woods, rates of under-age pregnancy 25 per cent higher than the district average.

l Well above average proportions of low-income households - 60 per cent in West Royd earn less than £10K, 44 per cent of dwellings claim council tax benefit (district average 25 per cent).

As a former resident of an East London borough that was the second most deprived in the country, I can assure you that the estates off the Leeds Road in Shipley East exhibit more evidence of poverty and social breakdown than that borough - and are self-evidently in greater need than Bingley and other areas that received funding.

Les Brook, Riverside Court, Victoria Road, Saltaire.

SIR - I totally disagree with your corresponent Mr B Brannan when he states that Britain is finished unless we drop the pound as soon as possible.

We have the strongest economy in Europe and it has come about precisely because we have been able to control it by, among other things, being able to set our own interest rates.

If we were in the euro we would be controlled by whatever the Germans and French wanted us to do. Now that would be a recipe for disaster!

Last week we lost a large piece of our heritage when the Metric Martyrs lost their case so we certainly don't want to lose any more of it. The Germans are not happy with the Euro and want their own currency back!

R Kelly, Cherry Tree Court, Ashley Road, Bingley.

SIR - There is no doubt whatsoever that a great deal of time and sympathy will be expressed to the people of Shipley and Saltaire about the problems they may face when the badly-sited Bingley Relief Road is opened.

I just hope that they realise that these problems have been endured by Bingley people for many decades, caused by traffic from those two areas descending on to the only road through Bingley.

I have no doubt more attention will be paid to them than has been made to Bingley's problems. Traffic crossing the Pennines should be discouraged from using the route.

Bingley will still suffer, no doubt, as this new road will run so close to Main Street, spreading fumes all over the valley.

Those who prevented the new road being built on top of the hills have much to answer for.

M Cook, Hall Bank Drive, Bingley.