SIR - Have Bradford's MPs and civic leaders taken Hazel Blears to task about her comments in her Fabian Society lecture in which she said the establishment of Saltaire owed more to the aggrandisement of Sir Titus Salt than it did to real concern for its residents?

To impugn Salt's motives does more than insult the man himself, it is saying all those who judged Salt to be deserving of honour got it wrong.

So it insults the judgment of the many hundreds of his workers who clubbed together to honour him in St George's Hall in 1856; the thousands of Bradfordians who paid, through public subscription, for the erection of his statue back in 1874; and the 100,000 Bradfordians who lined his funeral procession in the winter of 1877.

Last but not least, it insults the judgment of those civic leaders who sought designation of Saltaire as a World Heritage Site - a site which according to the Minister, was built by Salt primarily as an act of aggrandisement.

I believe the Minister's got it wrong and should withdraw her remark.

  • Dave Shaw, Saffron Road, Bracknell, Berkshire