Letters to the Editor

What are they doing to improve the lot of their city? Do they campaign against the assorted injustices in the city and challenge politicians on their doorstep? Or are they of the Silent Majority breed who fail to stand up to be counted?

I've admitted my Bradford roots when on holiday despite all the crass remarks. Usually it's of the racist mentality, and they tend to use other typical stereotyping insults that can apply to many other cities.

I'm no eternal optimist of Bradford like the evergreen reader Jack MacPherson. Indeed, I despair at the lawlessness in the city and the dubious, selective spending on the various SRB boards.

I also acknowledge that most of the city's greatest virtues are wrapped up in bygone days.

But it's the people who make cities. The feeble who dare not admit their roots, and doubtless contribute little crusading zest for the city's cause, deserve all they get.

B A Houseman, Coach Road, Baildon.

SIR - The extension of bye-laws preventing on-street drinking are to be welcomed. What is not to be welcomed is the undermining of work in places like Wibsey where Wibsey High Street is a residential street, unlike Bingley.

We have been arguing that the large volume of drinkers doing the run up Wibsey High Street from all over West Yorkshire creates a problem that the extension of these bye-laws would help.

I have publicly called for this to be brought to Wibsey, as have my colleagues. We understood it was being considered but have heard nothing.

So to hear that the Council have supported Bingley without a shred of consultation or listening to local members in Wibsey brings into question the nature of local partnerships.

We need therefore to be told how and why this decision was made (it may be the right one) if confidence is to be maintained in the process so we can then ensure Wibsey is high on the list for the next round.

Ralph Berry, Leyburn Grove, Shipley.

SIR - I would just like to thank the residents of Queensbury ward for re-electing me as their councillor. However, people quite rightly are not happy about certain national issues and are showing this through the ballot box at local elections.

The compiled statistics from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and the Home Office paint a grave situation with reference to refugees and asylum seekers.

In 1992 almost 700,000 people applied for asylum in Europe, with just five per cent applying to the UK. Contrast that with newly-released figures that in 2002 almost 350,000 people applied for asylum in Europe, a massive 27 per cent of whom applied to the UK!

Asylum is now at the top of the agenda as far as the majority of people in this country are concerned. The Labour Government and this country have to get a grip of this situation, otherwise there will be grave consequences. The majority of people quite rightly feel that both they and the country as a whole are been taken for mugs. I for one wholeheartedly agree that we are!

Councillor Andrew Smith (Con, Queensbury), Chapel Street, Queensbury.

SIR - I am horrified that the perpetrator of the recent bombing atrocity in Israel was British. What is happening to our country and why are we allowing it to happen?

This latest act of savagery shows that our Government has absolutely no idea of the evil-doers who are sheltering in our benevolent land. Nor has it any idea of how many it is still allowing in.

Britain has become a bolt-hole for villainous individuals and criminal organisations from all over the world. It has become a breeding ground for fanatics and the Government is standing by watching it happen. It is not us, but our children and grandchildren, who will have to pick up the pieces as a result of this inactivity.

We have already spawned the infamous "Shoe Bomber," Taliban fighters, the murderer of an American journalist in India, and a group who carried out a bombing campaign in Yemen. Couple this with Muslim clerics who breathe hate and death to Britain and its people, and we get a picture of the disastrous situation that is brewing.

M Wood, Westercroft View, Northowram.

SIR - A paper of contrasts was the T&A of May 3. On page 9 readers learned in a sympathetic report that "Thugs attack asylum seeker", recording that a man was beaten for trying to provide the service required in his job. (The victim's employers unfortunately seem intent on disciplining him for his pains.)

Turn the page and readers were treated to a rant by Mike Priestley in his North of Watford column where readers might as well have been encouraged to frogmarch asylum seekers to the top of Dover cliffs and throw them off.

What made your columnist forget the virtue of compassion, and the common humanity we all share?

Digby Stalman, Shirley Street, Saltaire.

Mike Priestley writes: "One rant begets another, it seems. Mr Stalman misrepresents what I wrote. My piece in North of Watford welcomed the Government decision to return some failed asylum seekers to Afghanistan on a plane and hoped many more would follow. It said nothing about hurling people off cliffs."

SIR - The National Canine Defence League would like to thank the kind people of Bradford for the amazing sum of £103.49 which was collected by our "Dogmobile" on April 12-14 in Centenary Square.

All the money collected will go to help the 1,500 stray dogs in the NCDL's care at any one time. Thanks once again for your generosity.

Cathy Walters, Mobile Rehoming Unit Manager, National Canine Defence League.

SIR - Re the letter "But is it possible" (T&A, April 29). Bradford Cross Rail would continue from the Interchange on land between the Law Courts and Vicar Lane at the same level as the tracks in the old Exchange Station, then along Petergate on a viaduct. This would avoid conflict with road traffic below, before coming down a gradient across the old Forster Square station to join the Shipley line east of the present Forster Square station. The difference in levels is a help not a hindrance.

With the proposed rebuilding of the Forster Square area, to prevent unnecessary expenditure and demolition in the future for Bradford Cross Rail it is most important that a ten-metre-wide strip is left now.

Otley Town Council are busy campaigning for their line, closed in 1965, to be reopened, a call now supported by the Countryside Agency document Railway Reopenings.

With Bradford Cross Rail and the Otley line reopened, Bradford would be on the Harrogate to Manchester mainline. Shipley to Halifax would only take 19 minutes using present-day timings. Passengers would flock to this service as they have done to the Leeds-Skipton trains.

Bradford Cross Rail is already supported by Yorkshire Forward, Countryside Agency, the Rail Passengers Committee and English, Welsh & Scottish Railways.

C V Barton (chairman, Bradford Rail Users Group), Hasley Road, Burley-in-Wharfedale.

SIR - Re the letter sent by P Milligan (April 2) about paying for the dog. My friend had to do the same! But looking at it in a different light, the dog should have been charged 30p, because it was 14 years old and should have had a bus pass.

Mrs F Pickles, Wade House Road, Shelf, Halifax.

SIR - Having read your report highlighting a call for local cycle provision, I am writing to point out that the canal towpath could offer an excellent, safe route.

Unfortunately, British Waterways' decision to resurface with dusty gravel rather than tarmac makes the route much less cycle (and pedestrian, pushchair and wheelchair) friendly than it could be.

It is a great shame that such a lot of time and money has been spent resurfacing the path between Shipley and Bingley with a material which creates dust in dry weather and turns to a porridge-like consistency in wet weather.

I'm sure that many people, the local schools' caretakers in particular, will join me in asking why we can't have a weatherproof, clean tarmac path to enjoy.

Judi Evans, The Locks, Bingley.