Letters to the Editor

SIR - Anyone who takes an interest in the environment should go and see what is actually on offer at the planning offices regarding the Broadway development. Undoubtedly, no-one would be happy to keep the 1960s buildings but their replacement should be based on quality architecture, improvement of the environment and amenity.

I suspect a debate is raging between the developers and the regeneration company. If it isn't it should be.

What Bradford is being given is a much bigger area of commercial development - and there are already too many - at the expense of open space. Yes, two new squares are promised but one we could call Forster Place, replacing Forster Square, the other is a windswept courtyard with hardly a stick of green or blade of grass.

The entire development is flat-roofed - not good for a city that sits in a basin - mediocre in design and contains Sixties ideas like an overhead walkway, ramps and multi-storey car parks, exterior fans and services including dustbins.

No-one at City Hall seems to appreciate that a well-tended, green and agreeable environment brings benefits in social sanity and inward investment. Bradfordians have been saying this for years but still are not listened to.

Peter Turner, Harlow Moor Drive, Harrogate

MoD in the dock

SIR - My heart goes out to Samantha Roberts, widow of Gulf war hero Sergeant Steven Roberts, whose life might have been saved if he had been wearing body armour.

The Ministry of Defence should be charged with unlawful killing, manslaughter or murder.

I am appalled that our young men were sent into conflict like this. It's no use the Labour Government saying that they inherited this situation from the Conservatives. They have been in power long enough to sort this out.

Tony Blair should resign, along with Geoff Hoon, Prescott, Straw, Blunkett and all their cronies. And I am ashamed to say that I helped vote them into power.

All I can say to Mrs Roberts is that your heroic husband can be a martyr for all our servicemen to ensure that this will never happen again.

John Lonsdale, Orchard Drive, Hessle, East Yorkshire

Hoon should quit

SIR - As an ex-serviceman and with a brother who served in Iraq with the Parachute Regiment, I feel I must publicly state my disgust with the Government but particularly the Secretary of State for Defence, Geoff Hoon.

The biggest decision a government can take is to send British troops to war.

To send them to war ill-equipped is, in my mind, a dereliction of duty. Geoff Hoon is not responsible for battlefield decisions, but he is responsible for making sure the Ministry of Defence has the correct quantity of equipment, so as to enable the military to have the tools to do the job.

Not content with Geoff Hoon and the Government are currently proposing to reduce the defence capability of the armed forces while, at the same time, committing these forces to ever greater operational commitments.

Mr Hoon is personally responsible and should resign. If he isn't prepared to resign I feel he will be forced to reconsider his position after the Hutton Report and other enquiries are concluded and published.

Councillor Andrew Smith (Queensbury), Chapel Street, Queensbury.

Second-rate care

SIR - I suffered a serious neck and shoulder injury almost five years ago while playing cricket. Although this has not stopped me working, I have been in constant pain and discomfort with restricted movement ever since.

The actual damage still hasn't been identified and I have had to wait more than 15 months for an MRI scan, which finally took place in December 2003. They now tell me the results cannot be looked at until March 2004 at the earliest.

I am so angry at this appalling, second or third-rate service being provided to non-private patients.

Several years ago I was treated under a private healthcare scheme and the consultants were literally falling over themselves to treat me, no expense spared.

The fact that I jumped queues (without proper justification and ahead of more needy people) to treat a minor ailment was the reason I did not renew my subscription.

Chris Eades, Wood Street, Steeton, Keighley

Study the evidence

SIR - Alec Suchi's stance (Letters, January 8) on the debate over religion could be paraphrased as follows: "Because I am objective and rational, I am qualified to discern between right and wrong and how this debate ought to proceed according to my very high standards. People need to come to the 'proper' way of looking at things as they really are which, of course, is the way I look at things."

There is no evidence of anything in the whole of the universe that is not the result of being the effect of some cause. Therefore, I feel there must be a reasonable cause for the persistence of a divinity.

Can we conceive of something that doesn't exist? I can certainly conceive of a pink elephant with three heads - but this is only because I already have experience of "pink", "elephant" and "head". (If pink did not exist, could I imagine it?)

When a human being creates anything, a great deal of thought process is involved.

How then can the intelligent mind conceive that the creation of the universe and all that lies within came about as a result of random chaotic fabrication leading to such complexities as we witness?

Michael Best, Clarke Street, Calverley

Cathedral finances

SIR - Whenever I visit Bradford I never miss the opportunity to seek out the news and views in the T&A and, for the record, the enjoyment this affords me has not waned in seven decades.

Today's The Economist magazine highlights the cataclysmic state of Bradford Cathedral's finances. If I had been in Bradford I would have followed this closely through your columns.

It is to be hoped that rank and file Anglicans in the Bradford diocese do not suffer again from any politico-ecclesiastical difficulties that might arise or worse, from knock-on effects of "litigious creditors" (The Economist).

I look forward to my next visit to Bradford and "a good and sensible read".

Ian Stewart, Couzens Close, Chipping Sodbury, Gloucs.

Just come clean!

SIR - David Riley, director of corporate development at Airedale Primary Care Trust, says public response to consultation over Bingley Hospital's proposed closure was disappointing (T&A, January 16).

Why doesn't he come out with it and say the hospital is going to close anyway? All these meetings are a waste of time and public money.

He knows the hospital is going to close, like most of the nursing homes in the district have closed and like Scalebor Park Hospital closed.

The public has no say in it at all. Why doesn't he just come clean?

Derek Kendall, Windy Grove, Wilsden.

All aboard...

SIR - As a retired former teacher with Bradford Education, I have a question. Having spent the best years of our careers rearranging the deckchairs on the Titanic, is there a possibility that my former colleagues and myself might qualify for discounts at the exhibition currently being held at Cartwright Hall?

Kevin Morris, Prince's Street Bradford