BRADFORD needs to look at other ways to reduce complaints from residents and businesses in areas where prostitutes are plying their trade in the city, a senior councillor has warned.

Councillor Andrew Mallinson, the Conservative's spokesman for neighbourhoods and community safety, spoke out after Leeds revealed a groundbreaking pilot project to allow prostitutes to operate in parts of their city was likely to be extended after it was hailed a success.

The managed area in Holbeck, which was quietly introduced in October last year, allows women to work on certain streets between 7pm and 7am as long as they adhere to set rules.

According to those behind the scheme, the project has seen complaints from residents fall by one third and crimes against prostitutes are now ten times more likely to be reported.

But a Bradford Council spokesman said on behalf of the city's Prostitution Strategic Partnership, which involves the Council, police and women support groups: "This is not something we are considering in Bradford."

Cllr Mallinson (Craven) said: "There's a whole raft of issues behind this - drugs, alcohol abuse, homelessness. All local authorities need to look at how they can tackle this problem. It would be interesting to see the full facts and figures from the Leeds project.

"If it's something that Bradford Council could engage with I think it should. It's clear that other measures have not worked. We have to start exploring any avenues."

Liberal Democrat group leader Jeanette Sunderland said the safety of women had to be paramount.

She said: "The city has a history of women who have been and continue to be victims so anything that's successful and makes their lives more secure should be looked at."

In April this year the Telegraph & Argus reported how kerbcrawlers in Bradford were being sent on awareness courses, instead of going to court, in a pioneering bid to tackle prostitution.

Fifty people have been on the course at that time with another 25 are waiting to go on it, police had revealed.

The Change Course scheme, which could be the first in the country, was boasting a 100 per cent success rate, with not a single man who had taken part in the course coming to the attention of police since.

Offenders have to pay for the course, where they meet local residents to learn at first hand the impact their behaviour has on the community.

It was one of the measures being used by police, working with Bradford Council and women's support groups, to tackle the issue of street prostitution, which appears to have reduced in Bradford's red light area around Thornton Road in the past year.

Two years ago there were fears of vigilante action with groups of young men seen walking the streets to deter prostitution and concerns from residents about the effect on their environment, the impact on their children, and connected crime and drug use.

Enforcement action has also included tackling brothels, looking at criminal organisations behind them and the welfare of the girls who may be forced to work there and looking at closing brothels down.