Letters to the Editor

SIR - Councillor King's letter on the fares increase (T&A, March 1) cannot go unchallenged.

First some facts on the UK position. In Wales pensioners get free travel throughout the principality. In Northern Ireland pensioners get free transport, both bus and rail, throughout the whole of Ireland.

In Scotland they are just moving to free transport throughout Scotland, even including free ferry transport to the islands.

If Ireland, Scotland and Wales receive free transport, why not the same for English pensioners? After all we are all United Kingdom tax payers so why not equal treatment?

There is an extremely strong case which the National Pensioners convention are pursuing with the Government.

However, despite the unfair treatment for English pensioners some cities still manage to provide free transport for their senior citizens. London, Merseyside and the West Midlands - including Birmingham, Coventry and Wolverhampton - all offer free schemes.

Nearer home Hull have recently announced that they will offer free transport as from April 1.

If other areas can manage why not the WYPTA area, rather than choose to impose an increase on one of the poorer sections of the population?

Peter Meer, Chairman, Yorkshire & Humber Pensioners Convention, Bramham Road, Bingley.

Poor service

SIR - Re fare increases (T&A, March 1), thank you Councillor King for your comments, which were self-explanatory, but not all bus services give us a proper service.

An example of this is the 576 Halifax to Bradford service which does not drop passengers at the top end of the city, along with other services that do the same so hundreds of passengers each week will not shop at the top end of our city.

The business community in this area of Bradford should be up in arms about the trade they are missing. Could this situation be rectified?

Keith Robinson, Albert Road, Queensbury.

Just keep away

SIR - There has been such a fuss made over the opening of a "sex" shop but really, are they selling sex or just the ancillaries of a sexual nature?

I feel very sad that Sue Hannan (T&A, March 1) has no tolerance in her. The answer to her problem is quite simply don't visit the shop. It's the same answer when people protest about shows on television. There is a turn-off button in all of us and in cases like this, use it!

Phil Boase, Elizabeth Street, Bradford

A key station

SIR - It is to be welcomed that plans for reopening Apperley Bridge railway station appear at an advanced stage, because of its strategic importance along the Aire Valley corridor (T&A, February 28).

Although the report mentioned plans to build a station at Horsforth Woodside, it is curious that no mention was made of Low Moor.

In August 2004 an unnamed Metro spokesman stated that depending on the appropriate level of funding, work may start at Low Moor in February 2005, but at this moment this is not the case.

It is to be understood that the precise location of the new station has been decided and that the designs have been finalised.

Notwithstanding the financial constraints within the rail industry, are there any prospects of funding being secured for this station to be built?

Low Moor is a strategically-important station as it enables access to the rail network from the south of Bradford and the Spen Valley, and would enhance prospects of reopening the Spen Valley Line.

Alec Suchi, Secretary, Bradford Rail Users' Group, Allerton Road, Bradford.

A telling speech

SIR - The remarkably poignant speech by Stevenage MP Barbara Follett expressing her doubts about the hotly-debated Bill giving the Home Secretary new powers to detain 'suspects' in our present difficulties was most telling.

She, as a young mother in South Africa, witnessed the arrest and subsequent murder of her first husband by the then pro-apartheid regime.

She told her children that our country was the place to go in that it was wedded to the idea of due process which, I believe, first found expression in Magna Carta.

Ironically in the long-gone world of the 1970s it isn't inconceivable that a Thatcherite Home Secretary armed with the sort of powers the present one seeks might have detained such troublemakers as Jack Straw, Harriet Harmon and, ironically, a real leftie bruiser who were all under surveillance by the authorities. I think he was called Charles Clarke.

I wonder what ever became of him!

Sid Brown, Glenhurst Road, Shipley.

Bazaar sight

SIR - I am writing about the current improvement works being carried out in the Barkerend Road and Leeds Road district of the city.

There are viable arguments on both sides with regard to this project. Some claim that the money shouldn't be spent on private dwellings and others that there is a need to improve the face of Bradford for what is a busy entry route into the city. My point is that whatever the pros and cons, until the Council clamp down on the shopkeepers taking up most of the pavement to display their goods, no amount of money and improvement work is going to stop the area looking like anything but a bazaar.

Neil Sutcliffe, Princes Street, Bradford.

Car fines solution

SIR - Re Michael Lee's letter (T&A, March 1) about the farcical fines handed out to car drivers, which just about gives the green light to carry on offending.

The T&A Court File of the same day showed that a 19-year-old, already disqualified from driving, had no licence, therefore no insurance, the car had no MoT, and the total fine was a mere £160.

The court and the magistrates are total strangers to justice, and should hang their heads in shame. They are not performing a public duty.

It's no wonder that police confidence is so low. They show offenders into court and the court lets them out of the back door.

Anyone driving a car without having passed a test is as dangerous as a person with a gun. It should be five years in prison and anyone without insurance should be imprisoned for three years. Then see how the Court File shortens.

Gary Lorriman, North Walk, Harden.

Tell us the truth

SIR - We have just had a great deal of publicity about the potential cancer threat of having dangerous ingredients (Sudan 1) in our food.

I would like to ask why we have such enormous media coverage about this when every day we are being given drugs which neither work nor are healthy for us? Most if not all drugs have side effects and can be worse than the disease they claim to cure.

Isn't it time that Governments, doctors and pharmaceutical companies came clean and told us, the users of these drugs, exactly what it is we are being given and not pretending that they can cure problems which they can't?

It's bad enough having to listen about miracle cures but then we are prevented from being able to take supplements which have proved their worth over hundreds and often thousands of years.

John A Stead, Rooley Avenue, Odsal.

Staff shortage

SIR - I used to work for the Council (sent by an agency) and there were ten of us who went around the area collecting bags, beds and other things that has been discarded.

At one stage we were told "you have a job for a long time" but sadly the Council pulled the plug.

When is the Council going to get the message? Bradford needs a fleet of vans and a group of people to man them, and then they will have a chance of keeping their finger on the fly-tipping pulse.

Harry Flynn, Powell Avenue, Little Horton.