The freeing-up of licensing restrictions to tackle the binge-drinking culture, in which people throw as much alcohol down themselves as they can within limited opening hours, is a sensible move. However, the controversial plan to take that liberalisation to the extreme by allowing pubs and clubs to stay open round the clock seems to have failed to find favour among publicans and public alike in Bradford.

It is perhaps not surprising that not a single pub or club has so far applied to stay open all day and night. As with the dream some years ago of turning Bradford into a 24-hour city, reality has kicked in.

The chairman of Bradford Inner City Licensing Association, Dean Loynes, rightly points out that the traditional patterns of working and socialising in this country don't lend themselves to that sort of lifestyle. Long working hours and the need to get up early to take the children to school don't sit easily with late-night drinking. Nor does the weather. Bradford is not Barcelona when it comes to strolling out at midnight for a beer in a street caf.

In addition, there are the harsh economics which apply in a place like this, which is not awash with spare money. The district's publicans clearly realise that there simply isn't the potential to take enough extra cash over the bars to cover the additional costs that 24-hour opening would entail - or to fund any extra policing that might be deemed necessary.

In the end it seems that all the worries about the effects of the proposal are likely to be proved groundless as market forces exert their influence.