Letters to the Editor

This will mean that the upper end of the valley will be infilled, leaving a steep and unnatural drop into the lower part.

I was dismayed at how quickly this landfill application was passed, without considering important issues that should have been raised.

Living in the lower end of the valley has made me aware of the problems that might occur. The house where I live is situated at the lowest part, and next to an embankment which has contributed to flooding in the past.

The planning panel was told that a single stream runs through the site. Actually there are two streams plus a main drain for the roads. Both streams combine with the road drain before the embankment. Any decision taken without this vital information is clearly invalid.

I appeal to the Council to reconsider this decision. It cannot be right for my home to be endangered.

Charles Spink, New Toftshaw, Bierley.

SIR - R G Jennings is right to be anxious about wasteful allocation of public resources and I'm sympathetic to the dangers of some northern cities being permanently dependent on state handouts. Yet England PLC is surely a much more sophisticated enterprise than that.

Both schools and employment need to be vigorously tackled, more especially when some view these entire cities as past their sell-by day. We cannot afford to rubbish the resources around us.

Government, partnered by people, will both value its human resources and the places where they live and want to work. Not to do so is to alienate people, and diminish vitality.

The Community Association and the Trust look forward to a vigorous engagement with both state and Urban Splash enterprises that will deliver reality along with vision for Bradford and the local Punjabi/Kashmiri/Bangladeshi communities around the mill.

George Moffatt, Manningham Mills Community Association, Carlisle Business Centre, Bradford 8.

SIR - I write to express concern at the proposed sale of Yorkshire Water to a community-owned mutual.

There are two particular issues I want to highlight:

1. Consultation. The people of Yorkshire, who will theoretically own the mutual, have not been asked if they wish to buy it. Each person in Yorkshire is being asked to take on a debt of £1,200, £500 of which would go to Kelda shareholders. What serious mechanism has been adopted for asking customers if they wish to buy this debt?

The consultation paper issued by OFWAT has not been made easily accessible, and yet responses had to be returned by July 17. Everything appears to be geared to the advantage of the shareholders and the disadvantage of the customers.

2. Unfair costs. Paying the interest alone on the debt would cost each customer £100. This will fall on rich and poor equally. It is unacceptable that anyone is forced to take on a debt without being consulted, but it is intolerable that poorer members of our community should be charged in this way so that profits can go to relatively wealthy people. Once again the poor are subsidising the rich.

There are many other concerns about this deal but on these two points alone I would urge that this proposal should not proceed.

Denis Jackson, Grange Road, Allerton.

SIR - Regarding the school changes from three into two tiers. It was heart-breaking to see the sad faces of the children walking out of the Mandale Middle School gates for the final time on July 14.

It has got to be one of the most regrettable decisions to close such a successful school. What a very great loss to our community and an insult to the teachers who have given their best to ensure our children received excellent tuition.

I know that other parents agree and would have preferred not to send their young children to upper school environments at such premature age groups.

My children are daunted by being taken from the school they love and placed with children years older. Children need a middle school, to prepare them emotionally for the change to upper systems.

Mrs L J Sidebottom, Poplar Grove, Great Horton.

SIR - I would like to thank the two ladies who came to my aid when I fell in North Parade some weeks ago. They were so kind, as were the paramedics.

I had broken my arm and my nose. My son thanks them for getting the ambulance.

Mrs A Spaull, Thackley Road, Thackley.

SIR - This sudden enthusiasm for parish councils must surely be inspired by the successful devolution of power to Scotland and Wales. Bradford's excitement marks a re-awakening of powerless people to influence politics.

So Richard Holmes (July 15) was right to welcome Councillor Gill's floater in Bingley. Right, but misguided and premature, as A W Pickles argued. Because parish councils are essentially political, despite Couns Gill and Owen's denials.

The Conservatives have gone wildly gung-ho for talk-shop parish councils without any undertaking on their new roles or their agenda. Neither Labour nor Conservative manifestos in Bradford this year have committed any power or decision-making to such bodies. The Liberal Democrats' manifesto, by contrast, published their determination to empower area panels and town or parish councils to make political decisions.

This devolving of power to the locality matches the re-awakening of democracy through village design statements too. So let's watch over the next two years to see how far the Liberal Democrats can manage this in a hung Council.

Sam Micklem, Spring Lane, Eldwick, Bingley.