Letters to the Editor

SIR - I welcome the initiatives to recycle waste (T&A, October 21) but must mention the disgrace that purports to be the Bowling Back Lane Household Waste facility.

If we are to encourage recycling we must offer the council tax payers of Bradford a better service than that offered at present. The opening hours are a joke, only open when we are all at work.

Go on a Sunday and the queue is all the way down Bowling Back Lane. When you eventually are given the "privilege" of entry you are led to a large building that smells to high heaven. There you throw all your waste on to a foul-smelling mountain, avoiding your and other people's debris as it slides back down towards you.

Why not open on summer evenings, or even floodlit winter evenings to reduce the pressure on weekends?

No wonder many folk take their waste down the local country lane and chuck it in the hedgerow.

By the way, my wife tried to use the textiles skip at Morrisons Enterprise 5 the other day. It was full to the brim. Our waste would not go in!

John R Armitage, Sutton Avenue, Swain House, Bradford 2.

l A Bradford Council spokesman said: "The Bowling Back Lane Household Waste Recycling Centre currently covers a large catchment area and is very heavily used. It handles 12,000 tonnes a year of which 45 per cent is diverted from landfill by on-site separation and recycling. The site is especially busy at weekends when we use the large transfer building to provide speedier throughput. However, we recognise that too much pressure is placed on this site and we hope to provide an additional site in North Bradford next year.

"The Bowling Back Lane site is open 362 days a year on weekdays from 8am-5pm, Saturdays from 8am-4pm and Sundays from 9am-4pm. Mr Armitage's comments about evening opening will be considered in the current review of our Household Waste Recycling Centre operations as part of a Government-funded initiative. We have also passed on his comments about the textile bank at Morrisons Enterprise 5 to the recycling merchant who provides and empties it."

No more tenders

SIR - It was very noble of Councillor Jeanette Sunderland to initiate a vote of no confidence against Margaret Eaton regarding the issue of the running of council-owned property and the authority's information technology services by offering them out to tender (T&A, October 20).

No council service should be put out to tender. They should be kept under control of the elected people.

Can anyone name a contractor who has fulfilled their full obligation to the council without asking for more financial or other help prior to contract conclusion? If there are any I will apologise to them.

Out of all the present contracts issued from the council the above two mentioned situations are the most revered.

Derek Wright, Westbury Street, Bradford 4.

Missing parties

SIR - Re your October 20 report on the meeting of the Council's Executive last Tuesday ("A smokescreen to hide service cuts"). Where were the opposition parties at this packed gathering?

As far as I could see, apart from the six Tories making up the Executive and myself (in the audience) precisely one Labour and two Liberal councillors attended - Councillor Cummins (Wyke) and Couns Sunderland and Ward (Idle).

Yet afterwards the leaders of the Labour and Lib-Dem parties had much to say on the matter of the proposed cutback in the community development funding of the community centres. How much more effective this might have been had it been voiced at the executive meeting itself, backed by 150 campaigners looking for effective councillor support!

I have to say, as a Wyke Ward councillor, that as we get nothing now, we will be no worse off in the future.

Councillor James Lewthwaite, c/o City Hall, Bradford.

Come and learn!

SIR - I read with interest an article in the T&A (October 25) about the lack of an administration in Kirklees Council.

Councillor Robert Light (Tory leader) said he would be surprised if the Labour and Tory group formed an administration after the Lib-Dem administration were forced to resign by the two said groups ganging up together on a whim without any forward planning.

Perhaps he needs to come and learn from Bradford Council where the Labour group props up the Tory leadership but takes no seat on the executive and besides chairing meetings contributes very little to the city.

Councillor Ann Ozolins (Lib-Dem, Idle Ward), City Hall, Bradford 1.