Letters to the Editor

What a shame these people have to share a cell which is only designed to house one person. If this is the only inconvenience they have to suffer, then they are very lucky.

Do they not still give them three hot meals a day, washing facilities, TVs and videos to watch and a pool table?

Most of them are re-offending drug-users, burglars and joyriders, who have at some time wrecked other people's lives and property. If they dislike the cramped conditions in Armley, then why do they choose to book themselves another room?

Armley is a prison, after all, and not a hotel where one can request a single room. Surely its occupants at some stage during their stay may well have to endure a little hardship if nothing else.

Shelley Pawson, Beechwood Avenue, Wibsey.

SIR - Crime is out of hand now and nobody is doing anything productive about it. I feel I could throw something at my TV set when I listen to how the jails now house more than 70,000 criminals.

I say start with the young ones in school and bring back the cane to teach tearaways they can't get away with rude and undisciplined behaviour. Teach them respect for everyone older than them and to fear the pain of the cane.

This is not barbaric, it is the most necessary thing to curb the young hooligans' behaviour so they won't end up in our overpopulated jails.

Bill Hudson, Woodvale Close, Tyersal.

SIR - When someone holds passionate views on a particular subject, there is always the danger that if they ride their hobby horse too hard and too often it will collapse underneath them from sheer exhaustion!

I fear this is what is happening to Norman Brown (Letters, October 16 and 17). His fear and hatred of Germany has become so obsessive that I have a mental picture of him straining his ears to detect the sound of tramping jackboots or the rumble of Panzer divisions along Harrogate Road!

He says Germans have not changed and are trying to rule the whole of Europe through the EU. His attempts to equate Germany in 2003 with the Third Reich would be alarming, were they not so utterly ridiculous.

The sad thing about people who confidently predict the apocalypse is that they look so foolish when it fails to materialise.

Peter Wilson, Thornhill Grove, Calverley.

SIR - After quite a few years the return of an old illness caused me to be placed in the care of the staff at St Luke's Ward A3.

There have been many changes over the years but one thing hasn't changed: The loving care and attention one receives, 24 hours a day. Staff are constantly on call with friendly faces, cheerful greetings and helpful advice. One could not be better looked after by one's own parents. Thank you, every one of you.

Jack Mawson, Grove House Crescent, Bradford 2.

SIR - As always, Mike Priestley writes with the voice of the people when he asks if the public sector gravy train will ever come to an end (T&A, October 18).

But it's good to see that those stalwart defenders of the public purse, our councillors, are part of that gravy train.

A 72 per cent increase in allowances, eh? And letting councillors join the council's pension scheme next?

And that happened with the backing of a team led by a former secretary of the Association of Metropolitan Authorities and chief executive of the former West Yorkshire County Council. Well nothing could be more independent than that, could it?

All this at a time when the whole of Britain is in an uproar over obscene council tax rises and in a turmoil over pensions crises!

Is there a shortage of people wishing to become councillors? Have we no choice but to have the greedy as our representatives?

At least we in North Yorkshire have an advantage; our police authority voted itself a mere 60 per cent increase in allowances. Along with a 255 per cent rise over two years in police precept.

There are no snouts in the trough in North Yorkshire!

Alan Perrow, Bannister Walk, Cowling.

SIR - The worst thing that happened to local government was paying councillors. The schemes they think of are mind-blowing.

They are all supporting a lake in the middle of Bradford but how is this going to bring shoppers here long-term? Surely they should be pushing for low council tax and rent for Council property to attract more business into Bradford, not grandiose schemes.

At the next Council elections these people should be ousted. They don't seem to have any ideas how to improve Bradford. I have and I will be standing for Council in 2004.

Michael Breen, Bolton Hall Road, Wrose.

SIR - I must respond to the letter from Councillor Martin Love (Letters, October 16) about mobile phone masts in Shipley.

My measurement of the radio frequency levels near the primary school and nursery he refers to show that values are very low - approximately 45,000 times below the appropriate public guideline level. In plain English, this means the radio frequency levels around the school and nursery are half the value that can be found on top of Baildon Moor! Measurements made in Moorhead Lane, Glenview Terrace, Queens Road and Victoria Avenue revealed values that were also well within the appropriate guidelines.

This should be good news for the parents who send their children to the school and nursery and for those people living nearby. I hope that Councillor Love will also interpret this as being good news.

Garry Homer, Director, Electromagnetic Surveys Limited, Grasleigh Avenue, Allerton.

SIR - I am pleased that Mike Ferguson, the ambulance driver who is alleged to have been travelling at 104 mph when transporting a liver to a transplant patient, will not now face prosecution.

But I would not like to see all such drivers given exemption from traffic laws as many organs are transported around our roads when there is no desperate need to get them to hospitals in the minimum time possible.

When it is absolutely necessary to transport organs as quickly as possible then the following should be considered:

First and foremost, vitally urgent deliveries should be made by air ambulance. When an air ambulance is not available the urgent delivery should be made by an ambulance driver who is an advanced driver, and in a special ambulance.

This should be capable of high speeds and come equipped with all the markings and emergency lights which are fitted to police traffic cars.

Brian Pickford, retired police traffic officer, Summerbridge Crescent, Eccleshill.

SIR - I think, on reflection, that Broadway has done a good job since the 1960s in bringing life back to the former Brook Street as a busy shopping precinct for the hoi-polloi, so to speak.

I remember it as a thoroughfare void of anything in particular, apart from a cinema, used mainly, it seemed, for the exclusive use of the West Yorkshire buses.

If the planners for the new Broadway are intent on making it a showpiece, they must ensure the stores instil a well-established feel about the place and do all they can to attract time-honoured shops we used to have, such as O S Wain's, Dunne's outfitters, Christopher Pratt's, Woolworth's etc.

Names like these will surely bring others of good repute into the reckoning once again.

Kenneth E Higgins, Bempton Court, Great Horton.

SIR - Congratulations to those road "planners" who have been trying for some months to cut off the west of Bradford from the rest of the city by digging up all the main roads at once. Today you finally succeeded!

After 50 minutes spent trying to complete an eight-minute journey (in which I got no further from Thornton than Clayton) I gave up and returned home.

Having achieved their aim, I trust these people will now go away and persecute someone else.

Mike Arnold, Sapgate Lane, Bradford.

SIR - Just a few words to say how happy I am to see that you are starting a "War on Litter" (T&A, October 21). I think it is one of Bradford's biggest let-downs and I don't just mean people dropping the odd crisp packet or cola can.

Fly-tipping seems to me to be the worst aspect, what with home improvements all the rage at the moment. Why can't certain people stop being so selfish and dispose of their rubbish in the proper manner? I, for one, do not want my daughter to grow up looking at a blighted city and thinking that it is the norm.

So come on, Bradford, let's all chip in and help to clean up our town. We may even appreciate it!

Phil Kirk, Marsland Place, Laisterdyke.