One of the biggest sources of complaint from Bradford people about their city is the amount of litter in the streets. It is very easy for the majority of us, as we pass through the worst-affected areas, to criticise the Council and its cleansing staff for not doing enough to clear it up.

However, as our feature today on the work of Bradford street cleaners makes plain enough, the job can be a tough one. Despite increased resources being put into street cleaning, the staff often feel they are fighting a losing battle.

Those frustrations surely are enough to handle without also having to contend with the threat of violence. We reported in Thursday's T&A how the female driver of a mechanical street cleaner was dragged from it by a gang of youths in Bradford Moor - an appalling act of lawlessness which has caused the Council to declare 23 streets a no-go area until the local community can guarantee the safety of employees.

Our street cleaners do a sterling job under tough conditions. If we want them to keep our streets clean, they must be treated with the respect they deserve.

Far from hindering them, there is a lot we could do to help them, such as picking up bottles, bags, cans and fast-food containers when we come across them on pavements and dropping them into the nearest litter bin - or, better still, disposing of litter and unwanted items in the proper manner in the first place.