A massive 134-point action plan to improve both the health of people across the district and the environment was unveiled today.

The strategy was produced in 1992 by Bradford Council and has a major revision each year to target on a wide variety of issues, including food safety, pollution, health and safety at work and housing.

But the new plan to take the district into the millennium contains a record number of targets.

They range from tackling the problems of unauthorised gipsy camps, HIV and AIDS education, putting out leaflets urging people to stop feeding birds and thus attracting rats, to making the district's first air quality action zones.

Poor housing and dilapidated empty properties are high on the list of priorities and the Council hopes to carry out repairs on eight groups of houses as part of an urban renewal programme. Today Councillor Steve Thomas, chairman of the housing and environmental protection committee said: "We hope to achieve the objectives with the help of other agencies and make a real impact on the lives of the people of the district. It is a very important plan. It is being up dated to take account of the Government's new agendas on health, crime and modernising local government."

The targets include:

Identifying five areas with the biggest incidence of home accidents and implementing local actions plans;

Making good air-quality across the district a top priority and declaring parts of the district with problems as air-quality management areas. Plans to tackle this could include tightening up enforcement on industry and implementing traffic measures;

Professional guidance to officers investigating noise complaints. The report says noise is a serious problem in the district and resulted in almost 1,900 calls to the division during 1997/8. Almost half of the complaints were about noise in houses;

Monitoring the quality of rivers for sewage and other contamination;

Introducing food hygiene in secondary schools as part of the National Curriculum;

Visiting all unauthorised gipsy sites at least once a week to monitor and count caravans. Producing an advice leaflet in conjunction with Bradford Chamber of Commerce for local businesses when they have illegal camps on their land.

Carrying out peer education work about HIV and Aids in about 20 secondary schools by March next year.

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