Letters to the Editor

My daughter, two grandchildren (one in a pram and a three-year-old), dog (poop scooper) and I were walking on Springholes only to find an obstacle course for a pavement.

Dog dirt, litter and stones were everywhere. The fields on one side are neglected and vile containers for horse shelters are an eyesore and in poor condition.

Some farmers and landowners seem to think they can put unused items of every shape and size behind out-buildings and no-one else can see them.

Have the people who walk their dogs along here (you know who you are) not heard of poop scoopers and plastic bags?

Is it not time for residents to take responsibility and teach themselves and their children to care and respect our environment?

J Farley, Worlds End's View, Thornton.

SIR - Your coverage of the Council's exhibition on the public response to last October's Bingley town centre improvements consultation implied mistakenly that the Council supports any of the alternative schemes that have been put forward.

The eight alternative schemes for the area around the Bingley Arts Centre shown in the current exhibition have come from local people and organisations who responded last October because they preferred them to the Council's suggested options.

The purpose of consultation is to provide an opportunity for different opinions to come forward. It is for this reason that all ideas, including redevelopment, however controversial they are, have been put on display.

The current exhibition is merely providing information on the responses, of which there were over 300, including these eight alternative schemes. The Council is not making any comment on them at this stage.

Whatever approach the Council ultimately takes will be decided at the Shipley Area Committee on March 18 in the light of the public comments.

Councillor David Heseltine (chairman, Shipley Area Committee and Bingley Ward member), Nab Wood Road, Shipley.

SIR - I refer to the cartoon/caption in the T&A dated January 29. Besides finding it amusing in the sarcastic sense, don't you think it is out of season in relation to current weather of Bradford, or for that matter in Blackpool?

Mohammed Iqbal, Cecil Avenue, Great Horton.

SIR - Should the members of the House of Lords, in the extremity of their patrician dotage, see fit to reject the Bill to ban fox-hunting, I suppose the unspeakable will remain free to pursue the uneatable in the name of "sport" and countryside cleansing.

Speaking for the opposition, who believe that all animal species have the right to live regardless of their natural inclinations, I am sure that the fox is not forced to take domestic and rural livestock in the form of iniquitous plunder but is quite capable of living off the wild.

Therefore it behoves all owners, whether of pets or stock, to ensure their total security against the fox's inroads.

The problem can be resolved without consigning to a horrendous and obscene death a creature which is only acting naturally as a predator. If this spoils the fun of the landed gentry, the farming lobby and other vested interests, then tough!

Derek Mozley, Moorhead Terrace, Shipley.

SIR - Derek Wright (Letters, January 20) is wrong on several counts. Firstly, the red fox is classified as vermin, along with the rat and feral pigeon among others.

It is a well-documented fact that when given the chance the fox will kill smaller animals indiscriminately, not just a single chicken for its dinner but perhaps dozens. People must realise that the fox is not a cuddly animal, it is a wild creature and should not be given any Walt Disney-esque status.

For many farmers, hunting is but one means of pest control and if it's banned then snaring, gassing and shooting will have to do, none of which offer as clean and relatively painless death as the hound does.

D Jewitt, Falcon Road, Bingley.

SIR - I wonder if you or your readers can help me find an old friend. We last met in 1948. He is Jeff Illingworth, who lived in Pemberton Road off Easby Road in the early 1940s. His father and brother Tom were marble masons at Rawson Road, the site now redeveloped as part of the fruit and vegetable market. Jeff is distinguished by his height - 6ft 8in.

We met in the Home Guard in 1940 at the Court House, Hall Ings, the site redeveloped by your paper. He served with the 2nd Scots Guards at the Anzio bridgehead.

We had a third companion Tom Mularky who lived in Hanover Street. He was only 6ft 4in.

I would be glad to hear from anyone who remembers them.

John Binney, 43 Carleton Green Close, Pontefract, Wakefield, WF8 3NN.

SIR - Re the City Hall proposals. What goes on in our councillors' tiny minds? There is no money for essentials such as looking after elderly people who helped to make this city great in years gone by. They are of no consequence now, no money there, but with pie-in-the-sky ideas the consultants get the money.

This Council should do the decent thing and resign now before things get any worse. What about a referendum on big issues so that taxpayers can have a say? Big ideas should be left for the future until the ground work has been done. What's the point of fancy pubs and cafes etc when there are no decent shops that bring the money and people in?

There is not one political party I feel I can vote for now. A third-rate city with a third-rate Council.

My grandfather and father, stalwarts of the Council, must be revolving in their grave.

A E Bone, Pellon Terrace, Thackley.

SIR - I could not agree more with the article "Try the market for a change" (T&A, January 24).

My family, including my parents, have been shopping in Bradford's markets for many years. I have fond memories of shopping in Rawson, Kirkgate and at John Street Market with my mother.

The Oastler Centre really is the best place to shop for fresh foods. You can buy everything there: fresh meat, pies, bacon sausages, cooked meats, cheese, eggs, fish and seafood, fruit and vegetables, continental foods, frozen foods, weigh-out biscuits and cakes.

So support your local market traders and enjoy fine food.

Jack MacPherson, Killinghall Road, Bradford 3.

SIR - How am I to know the truth? Some people tell me that asylum seekers are nearly all economic migrants looking for a rosy future here without having contributed anything.

Others say they're just genuine people who have had to leave home, family and everything they hold dear, to take a risky journey here to escape unthinkable cruelty.

Must I believe that soldiers would really do serial rape and governments torture their own people to the brink of death?

I know what I'd rather believe. If I'd never heard about Nazi Germany or Japanese POW camps, I'd say humans wouldn't treat each other like that.

We must take care. We could become Nazis as easily as anyone else. We only need to stir up hatred against another group - blacks, Muslims, Jews and asylum seekers - for the BNP to be elected.

On Judgement Day I'd rather be labelled a do-gooder than an evil-doer.

Mrs F S Langridge, Crofton Road, Heaton.

SIR - Further to my letter about getting out of Europe and the Euro, I now see President Chiraq and the German Chancellor uniting in not supporting Britain in the war against Iraq.

I do not want another war either, but to see these two men nearly hugging each other makes me sick.

To think I put my life on the line to liberate the French from the Germans and to see them now in bed together both against the British at every turn, makes me wish I had never bothered because these two countries are our biggest enemies.

N Brown, Peterborough Place, Undercliffe.