Letters to the Editor

On page two the manager of Chiltern Mills is disturbed, quite rightly, by what appears to be a "laissez-faire" attitude to shoplifting by security staff and police. Shoplifting is theft and those taking part in it should be prosecuted as thieves, not allowed to get away.

What a different attitude shown by police in the article on page three, where it took 12 officers, some in protective clothing, to ram a door and arrest a woman and nine cannabis plants.

I don't approve of smoking in any form, whether it's cannabis or nicotine, but I do think the police were going a little bit over the top.

Or was it just a publicity exercise so the police could be seen to be doing something, to stop people moaning about them failing to do anything about the dealing in hard drugs in this town, the regular muggings of children and old people, etc.

My husband was assaulted in Keighley town centre by a young man who knocked his glasses off and then beat him about the head.

This was nearly four months ago: it was the middle of a Friday afternoon and there were a lot of witnesses. We have heard nothing from the police since; we don't know whether the assailant was charged, banned from the town centre or what.

Can the police wonder that Keighley people are just a bit cynical about them?

NAME AND ADDRESS

SUPPLIED

SIR - One young woman led away from her house, her head covered by a sheet, on suspicion of cultivating nine cannabis plants.

Did this operation really require 12 police officers?

Did it need to start at 7.30am and continue throughout the day?

From 20 years spent in Keighley, I would have thought the police had better things to do.

From your article, I concluded that they had -- blighted someone's life; wasted their resources; alienated themselves from the community and made themselves look ridiculous.

I was reminded of the following lines, from Offenbach's operetta Genevive de Brabant:

We're public guardians bold

yet wary

And of ourselves we take

good care

To risk our precious lives we're chary

When danger looms we're

never there

But when we meet a helpless woman

Or little boys who do no harm

What do we do? We run

them in

We run them in ..

And show them we're the bold gendarmes

N A Andrews

Castlerea,

Co Roscommon

Rep of Ireland

SIR - I am writing to you regarding the situation at the Keighley sorting office.

Notice has been given that, as of Monday, September 1, 2003, the callers office will close at 14.00 instead of 18.00.

As the owner of a small Keighley-based business I want to bring this situation to a wider audience and to highlight one particular problem that this decision creates.

Royal Mail's analysis is that there are nearby alternatives for the services that will be lost after 2pm and, for the most part, this is true. The town centre Post Office, while far less convenient, is there.

However, this still leaves a serious gap which I wish to draw attention to.

We are very regular users of Royal Mail's Special Delivery and Recorded Delivery services, both of which require a Royal Mail employee to accept the items and issue a receipt. To better serve our customers nationwide, we rely on being able to get Recorded and Special Delivery items accepted as late as possible.

At the sorting office, this means 18.00 whereas the town centre Post Office requests signed-for items to be in by 17.15.

The loss of these 45 minutes will have an impact on all users of Recorded and Special Delivery, especially businesses, and I have written to Royal Mail requesting further discussions.

I don't doubt that these cutbacks have been implemented in order to save money and Royal Mail clearly hopes to achieve this without any serious impact on its business.

I can think of no way that I can make my customers' order earlier and I cannot justify having two overnight shipping methods, one for early orders and one for later orders, which means that all my shipments will have to go to another carrier, probably at an increased cost.

If businesses in Keighley, small and large, are affected, Royal Mail's business is bound to be affected as well.

The good news is that there is a solution.

The sorting office itself will clearly still be operating so I have suggested an arrangement be made for the acceptance of Recorded and Special Delivery items between, say, 17.45 and 18.00.

This very modest change to Royal Mail's plans would make a great difference to my company and others like us who rely on Royal Mail. I am well aware that many of your readers may have other concerns about this cutback in service.

Royal Mail has clearly made its decision and attempting to get the whole process reversed is a far larger issue. I am trying to focus on one very small and, hopefully, achievable goal.

If any of your readers have other suggestions, I would urge them to write to Mr Allan Leighton, at Royal Mail, at the following e-mail address, Ask.Allan@RoyalMail.com.

Mark Townsend

Managing Director

Samma Ajiva Limited

SIR - I sympathise with Cllr Andy Mudd and residents of Spring Gardens and Shann Lane regarding heavy goods vehicles using this route to the Tarn tipping area, but I must disagree that they are avoiding congestion of heavier town traffic, this has not occurred overnight.

The main routes to the Tarn tipping area have always been Highfield Lane and West Lane, both are direct roads to the Tarn. However, what he fails to mention is that in recent months traffic calming measures have been introduced all the way up Highfield Lane.

This has obviously created great problems for these truckers who have now found this new Spring Gardens route and are boycotting Highfield Lane for a longer but less difficult journey for them.

I attended the council meeting that passed this road calming scheme and although Highfield Lane has seen a traffic reduction, it is obvious roads such as Cllr Mudd refers to have caught much heavier traffic movement as have other districts, mainly West Lane and Highfield Road.

I warned the meeting and the road engineer who was present that traffic would look to other routes to beat these so called road calming measures and this is just what is happening.

As for the Bradford Council spokesman who said in the KN they were looking into addressing this problem of the heavy goods vehicles, it is like locking the stable door after the horse has bolted.

Finally, I also read in the KN that these humps and bumps are causing misery for some of the poor residents of Belgrave Road, with water diverting and flooding their living areas, which had not happened before during heavy rainfall.

To quote The Sun newspaper's well known columnist, "You just could not make it up!"

BRIAN KENEALY

Highfield Road, Keighley

SIR - I would like to reply to the gentleman from Brixton who wrote a rather amusing but completely irrelevant letter to this paper a couple of weeks ago concerning the meeting in the East Morton Village Institute, on Thursday, August 7, about the proposed children's home at Carr Bank.

The gentleman's letter concentrated on his own personal opinions (the attitudes of northerners compared to southerners, whether it is possible to have a moral opinion while wearing a Leeds United football shirt, the appearance of the Waterside Fold estate and whether someone who know lots of statistics could possibly be a doctor) but completely ignored the real issues themselves which are important to the residents of East Morton.

There is another meeting at the village institute, on Monday, September 1, at 7pm to discuss the plans for this children's home. At this meeting the issues themselves, whether East Morton is the correct place for this children's home (in my opinion it isn't), whether it has suitable facilities (in my opinion it doesn't) and whether the council followed the correct procedures in deciding upon East Morton as a location for one of its homes (in my opinion they didn't), will still be there.

The statistics will still be the same, but this time they may not be quoted by a doctor, the moral issues will be raised again, although this time perhaps not be a man wearing a football shirt and people will probably still shout loudly and interrupt, not because they are bigoted, ignorant northerners as the gentleman suggests, but because they care passionately about the important issues at stake and want to prevent this home from being built in East Morton.

We urge as many people as possible to attend this next meeting to show the extent of opposition within East Morton to this children's home.

Jeremy Wright

Roedhelm Road,

East Morton

SIR - The Bradford & District St David's Society, Cymdeithas Dewi Sant, Bradford a'r Cylch, is approached from time to time by people wishing to learn Welsh.

I was therefore very pleased to notice in the list of courses starting at Keighley College that Welsh is one of the subjects. This will be a beginners' and conversational class, with ten sessions of two hours, on Tuesday evenings, from 7 to 9pm at the Cavendish Street buildings.

The cost is £37 for the course and the tutor is Mr David Lloyd Owen. Enrolment is Thursdays in August, 1 to 7.30pm, Saturday, August 30, 10am to 1pm, and Monday and Tuesday, September 1 and 2, 1 to 7 30 pm. Any inquiries -- please ring 01535 618600. This is the first such class to be run in this area, to my knowledge; please support it! The St David's Society also runs a class for those who cannot attend in the evenings. We meet alternate Thursday afternoons, from 2 to 5pm, in each others' homes in the area, and the first lesson of the winter session will be on October 16. Please ring 01535 665829 for details.

For fluent, or formerly fluent, Welsh speakers who like to use the Language of Heaven to put the world in its place, there is the Welsh conversation club Clwb Clebran.

We meet on the first Wednesday evening of each month in the 1st Floor bar of the Bradford Club, 1 Piece Hall Yard (runs from Hustlergate in Bradford, just opposite Waterstones, to Kirkgate) between 7 and 10pm -- feel free to drop in for a drink and a chat. The next meeting is on Wednesday, September 3. Again, please ring 01535 665829 for details. The society has just issued the new programme of events -- ring the above number for a copy.

Eileen Walker

Bradford

SIR - The Keighley News reports the thoughts of Mujeed Rahman, of the Ahmadiyya Association, a brilliant young man, who, I'm told, many people believe, has a succinct grasp of religious reality.

While I am not of his religion, or any religion for that matter, I have found his comments have the courage of stating the obvious.

The view of many non-Islamic people, including myself, is that fundamentalist Islam has all but destroyed the expression of tolerance, which in the beginning, was inherent in true Islam. Yet, from my understanding of what little I know of the Ahmadiyya Association, the principles they stand for are basically "Love thy neighbour, don't smoke, drink alcohol, use foul language, nor lust or envy your neighbours' family or goods".

My wife, who is a devout Christian, tells me that belief is almost exactly the Christian viewpoint. Yet the fact is that, unfortunately, many Islamic people and various so-called intelligent people of other religions do not wish to listen or even debate with Mr Rahman.

For instance, most newspapers, of differing politics and religions, will not even print the observations of the Ahmadiyya Association, thereby imprisoning their readers to a mindset of many thousands of years past.

I do not suggest in any way that the Ahmadiyya Association and Mujeed Rahman have all, or even any of the answers with which to bring total peace to the world. I do suggest, nevertheless, that maybe; just maybe, talking can be a way of appreciating other ideas, not only of differing religious perspectives, but also in everyday issues.

However, I don't hold out much hope, as over the years, I have discovered that all too often the human race is far too stupid to grasp such a simple idea, as positive and practical discussions could benefit mankind.

David Samuels

Oxenhope