SIR – I read with incredulity the report on salaries paid to our top Council officers (T&A, April 1). To say I was shocked is an understatement.

How can they sit in office and watch our once-proud city fall into the abyss?

Look at the amount of empty properties in the centre of Bradford, street after street.

The strategic director of culture, tourism and sport earns £112,335 per year, but how can this be justified when we were voted the worst city to visit in the UK?

The strategic director of regeneration earns £118,563 per year, but the Broadway development is on hold, engineering gone, a question over the Odsal sports village and Lottery funding failed. One disaster after another.

We are told Bradford is on its way back. I can’t see where. Am I the only one who feels these Council officers are doing very little to earn these huge sums?

If Bradford was thriving and business booming, then fair enough, but it isn’t. Bradford is dying, slowly but surely.

Do they really thing a pond, a garden and some landscaping will fool the people?

They are trying to pull the wool over our eyes, but unfortunately that industry has gone as well.

Richard Exley, Sanderson Avenue, Bradford