There are high hopes for that part of Bradford known as Goitside - the wedge of the city between Thornton Road and Westgate which has been earmarked for regeneration. Some new businesses have been wooed into the area already and improvement work is taking place on the old buildings.

However at the same time established businesses are complaining about their trade being adversely affected by the prostitutes, pimps and punters who have moved back into the area despite it being designated as an exclusion zone for vice offenders two years ago.

One of the people working in the area took an optimistic view when he talked to the T&A, pointing out that the more businesses the area attracts, the more discouraged the vice trade will become.

That might indeed happen. However, there is little doubt that the presence of the prostitutes and their clients will make it more difficult to attract those much-needed businesses.

So the stepped-up daily patrols by street wardens and Police Community Support Officers are a useful development. So, too, is the decision to introduce Anti-Social Behaviour Orders (ASBOs) for the first time against persistent kerb-crawlers.

As Superintendent Geoff Dodds of Bradford South Police points out, arresting the prostitutes is not the best answer when many of the women involved are victims of drug addiction and abuse at the hands of pimps. Solving the problems which force them to seek a living on the streets is a complicated business.

So it makes sense to tackle, instead, the men who use the prostitutes. The ASBOs could well prove useful in deterring them from kerb-crawling and helping to make Goitside respectable again.