A leading company has vowed never to work with Bradford Council again after the jewel in Bradford's tourism crown was left without information signs.

High-flying Saltaire company Filtronic has hit out at the Council because the five metal plaques - removed in June when factual errors were discovered - have still not been replaced.

The plaques gave Sir Titus Salt the wrong birthday, included faulty directions and an incorrect picture of the Salt family coat of arms.

Filtronic, a traders' leader and the company that made the signs all believed they had been removed for corrections to be made.

But Steve Bateman, heritage manager for Bradford Council, said the signs could not easily be altered and it had never been intended to correct them and put them back in place.

He said the information on the original plaques tied in with a guide book which was accepted as being correct at the time of publication. But, after consultation, the information had been revised and would be included in a new guide book to be published soon.

He said he was not sure if the signs would then be reproduced, taking the new information into account, but talks were on-going with sponsors.

"We put our hands up and said we'd got it wrong. We've taken them down and that's the end of the story. You can't alter the signs. You have to redo the whole lot," added Mr Bateman.

"If you were to make an alteration it would look like a rubbing out and we wouldn't want something that wasn't up to the proper standard."

But Fred O'Brien, partner in the Liverpool-based Northern Design Unit who made the signs, said he was amazed they still had not been returned to their positions in Saltaire. He said the plaques originally cost in the region of £7,000 to make and mount and would cost £2,500 to re-cast without the mistakes.

"The modifications to the signs would be moderately easy to do. They would take eight to ten days at most. We were expecting them to be returned to us.''

A Filtronic spokesman, one of the businesses to sponsor the signs, said: "Obviously we're not happy. We seriously would not be willing to invest in anything involving Bradford Council due to the fact that they have messed it up. We assumed the signs were being corrected and we have not been contacted by anyone to say otherwise or to apologise.''

And Malcolm Gray, chairman of Saltaire Traders' Association, said: "It's ridiculous that it's taken so long. A lot of money was spent on them and they've completely disappeared.''

Councillor Phil Thornton, chairman of Saltaire Project Team, said they would look at giving a formal response to Saltaire's business community.

T&A Opinion

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.