What a bizarre mixed bag is the £37 million-worth of schemes which has won finance from the Government in this year's Local Transport Plan.

There is much to be admired in the package, including closing off Petergate to allow pedestrians to flow from the properties in the new Broadway shopping development into Little Germany. But there appears to be some very muddled thinking in plans for moving traffic in and out of the city centre on major routes.

At one end of the plan, the need to keep vehicles flowing on the largely inadequate arterial routes into the city centre is acknowledged by improvements to ease congestion at the Staygate and Mayo Avenue/Manchester Road roundabouts. However, on the other side of the city it seems planners are determined to make travel even more difficult by putting bus lanes in Leeds Road and Barkerend Road.

This means already heavily-congested streets will be completely clogged at peak times while the occasional bus sails up and down on empty tarmac.

A major national report earlier this year proved beyond doubt that bus lanes create more congestion and pollution. They fail to attract travellers on to public transport and cause even longer tailbacks of cars and lorries moving slowly and pouring even more greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.

Yet Bradford continues to slavishly waste money on bus lanes and cycle routes in spite of its unsympathetic geography for the latter and the eventual effect on the city-centre economy.

For once we can offer marks for some good ideas and an improved effort, but the overall scheme is still a four out of ten.