SIR – What a nonsense from Cllr Ross-Shaw about the proposed Community Infrastructure Levy for Bradford. He knows that the sites in question – brownfield sites in the inner city – are hardly viable for development what with expensive site clean-up costs, highways requirements and affordable housing provisions. To remove a further five per cent tax on development doesn’t mean that Council will be out-of-pocket, it means that these sites might be developed and local people might have the housing and jobs they need.

All this reminds us of the shambles that is Bradford’s local plan. Nearly ten years into the process and we have no plan, no housing allocations and no idea how the City will meet the needs of its growing population. Worse still the half-plan that was produced failed to explain how regeneration of the inner city would be delivered while proposing thousands of new houses on green belt in Queensbury, Thornton and Clayton.

Cllr Simon Cooke, Leader, Conservative Group, City Hall, Bradford