Forget petitions, placards and banners. One Shipley man has dreamed up a sure-fire way of getting his voice heard at a village council meeting.

Poet and songwriter Eddie Lawler, pictured, is set to steal the stage at next week's Saltaire Neighbourhood Forum - by singing about the issues closest to his heart.

Eddie is hoping his two songs - about Bradford Beck and a campaign to get Saltaire's church bells ringing again - will hit the right note with forum regulars.

And organisers reckon it might even encourage a few more people to come along to Saltaire's first forum since the village was awarded World Heritage Site status.

Eddie, who lives in Saltaire, said: "I go to neighbourhood forums anyway and, as a committed citizen of Bradford and Saltaire, I think it is a very good institution because it allows local people to express their concerns and views. I'll be using the occasion to put a couple of my own items onto the agenda - in my own way!"

Eddie stole the headlines recently when he penned his new song Bradford Beck, about his bid to have the waterway between Shipley and Bradford reopened. He is hoping that by performing the song at the meeting, interest in the campaign might grow further still.

And Eddie also has ambitious hopes attached to his second piece of the evening.

"I will be singing a song about bell ringing," he explained. "Now that Saltaire has been made a World Heritage Site, it would be lovely to have the bells ringing again at the United Reformed Church.

"At the moment the sound of bells is played through a tape recorder and I think a World Heritage Site deserves better than that. There are bells available, it is just a question of raising the awareness of people and then seeing if we can find ways and means of re-establishing them."

The project has the backing of Bert Thornton, a regular at the church for 81 years. He said the bells were last rung in the 19th century, but taken down because it was feared the structure of the building was insufficient to hold them. "Personally, I think it would be lovely to get them ringing again," he said.

Now Eddie is waiting to see what reaction he gets to his singing at the forum. "Hopefully, they will just see it as a chance to celebrate Saltaire's fantastic news.