SIR - Bradford Council wishes to demolish the Branch Hotel on the Bradford Road near Shipley in order to create an expanded road junction.

Many local residents, including myself, object to this act of civic vandalism and want the planning panel to kick this application into touch.

The Branch has been a local landmark since 1850 and sits within Saltaire’s World Heritage Site buffer zone. The Council’s Conservation Officer states that demolishing this old pub will breach several key planning and heritage policies.

The Green ward councillors have been told repeatedly that the building is structurally unsound. Yet Highway Services admit that a structural survey of the building has not been carried out.

Our Labour-led Council tells us they wish to re-engineer the junction to deliver transport ‘improvements’. Yet no preferred design option has been identified. No detailed transport modelling has been carried out to determine the impacts on journey times, carbon pollution or local air quality.

The Council has already acquired the land and the building, so the Labour leadership can easily put the brakes on this project. Officers will then have time to carry out a proper structural assessment and consult the public properly before any final decisions are made.

Cllr Kevin Warnes (Green, Shipley), Moorhead Terrace, Shipley