SIR - I had to sigh when I read that the Regen Scheme is pouring money into the improvement of Leeds Road.

This area could easily be sorted by giving short courses to most of the traders on window dressing, making the best of pavement displays, how to use a sweeping brush, exterior painting, general property maintenance and pride in shop frontages.

There would then be enough money left for the same lessons to be taught to traders in Carlisle Road, Barkerend Road, Great Horton Road, Manchester Road, and hey presto for just a fraction of the cost we would have a vast improvement to the appearance of the city.

Norina Manley, Blakehill Terrace, Undercliffe

SIR - To Mr N Brown "God" is responsible neither for the bad nor good on this earth (Letters, March 5). He doesn't exist. Humans are responsible for the good, the bad and the indifferent.

Most of us are in the indifferent camp thus allowing politicians, theologians and academics to nuke the world, while producing between them, not one thing of true value.

Had the Western world adopted the realistic, business-like philosophy of Aristotle instead of the mystical altruistic one of Plato, we'd have had our modern luxuries and wonders centuries ago. All disease would be eliminated, and we would have biological immortality.

Instead we've allowed ourselves to be injected with fear (Hell), and guilt (sinners), causing us to be sheep-like.

Religion is a business, and a very lucrative one. And no wonder. It's the only one offering a return on your investment when you're dead and gone.

Eric Firth, Wellington Street, Wilsden.

SIR - Only a pop star on £2,000+ per week with a well-off boyfriend too - like members of Girls Aloud - could consider pop concert tickets to be cheap.

Even for a graduate earner going to the cinema it is so much cheaper by comparison.

Isn't it time the British music industry and their promoters got less greedy, especially as some of their main customers are unwaged kids and students?

John Taylor, Park Hill Drive, Bradford.

SIR - May I urge all men aged between 60 and 64 to apply now for a Metro Senior Permit (for reduced bus and train fares). This is their right - one which has been hard won, in spite of the opposition, or apathy of local MPs and the Government.

A small pressure group called PARITY has forced the Government to grant this concession to 60-year-old men (women have had this right for many years). PARITY has also gained equal rights, for men, to free prescriptions and winter fuel allowances at 60. Again these concessions were formerly for women only.

PARITY is still fighting to equalise retirement age for men as well as women at 60 now, not at 65 in 2020!

How much longer must this blatant example of sex discrimination be allowed to exist?

Dave Murgatroyd, Briarwood Drive, Wibsey.

SIR - As British soldiers have always said, the French are good on parade but where are they when it comes to the crunch? The French Foreign Minister surely could hardly believe his own words when saying that political pressure has brought about some missile destruction.

What a poodle he is! There are 29 areas of Iraqi regulation breaches. The missiles are just one of them. After defying the UN for 12 years, only an idiot would think that Iraq would have done this without a massive military force on his doorstep. And not one of them is French.

So France cannot claim any credit at all. Its strange bedfellows, Germany and Russia, will soon distance themselves, and after a quick victory I will be left pouting and prancing about and not invited to "the knees-up".

Perhaps a peace-keeping role for La France. That's more its style. Still good on parade.

Gary Lorriman, Long Lane, Harden

SIR - Further to your report on March 8 regarding the asylum-seeker Haval Ahmed. He supposedly fled the terrors of Iraq. Apparently he is mortified by terror.

That is, unless he is dispensing the terror as a member of the gangs who terrorised Bradford in July 2001. For his behaviour, he is to be looked after by the State, fed, clothed, entertained and kept warm (all at our expense), for a couple of years. No deportation.

For a person who, along with others, tried to destroy this city, deportation should be mandatory. Ah, but then ...

J Lewis Nicholl, Plumpton Gardens, Wrose.