SIR - Further to the report on December 27 headed "Valley house prices to soar", the Bingley relief road is designed to take the heavy traffic away from the town centre and will not help commuters travelling by car from Bingley to Leeds. The trains are full at peak hours and are very uncomfortable.

The largest area of land available for proposed development is between Bingley and Crossflatts situated between Micklethwaite Lane, Sty Lane, Oakwood Drive, and Fairfax Road, and is due to be the subject of a public inquiry into the UDP which has just started.

This site will take 600-800 houses if released for development. At two cars per household, that equals 1,200-1,600 extra cars pouring down Micklethwaite Lane or Park Road to join the Bingley Relief Road.

The editor's Comment was significant when he said that building must be limited. The considerations are not only to traffic, but also to schools, health, sewerage and public services.

Should this development go ahead we shall see the value of houses fall in the area, not increase!

Let us hope that the inspector at the public inquiry appreciates that Bingley needs this green lung in the midst of the Aire Valley,

Pauline Wood (Greenhill Action Group), Greenhill Drive, Micklethwaite.

SIR - You couldn't make it up. In one recent edition of the T&A we had a letter about house price inflation in the Aire Valley, a report on the alleged use of a conservatory in Bierley by 100 people as a mosque and the appeal by a Bradford man caught with £55,000 of crack on Leeds station.

One has to agree with Mr Lorriman of Harden on our right to moan as the city is brought to its knees.

House-price inflation will be kept permanently in check for reasons that slap us across the face every day.

Mark Ashdown, Ling Park Avenue, Wilsden.

SIR - What a way to kick off the New Year, that J R Renshaw should link his disgust with the current criminal justice system and the glorious Victorian high renaissance Lister's Mill.

Manningham Mills Community Association, Urban Splash, Bradford Council, Yorkshire Forward and Uncle Tom Cobbleigh, not to mention the thousands of Mirpuris, Punjabis and Bangladeshis who surround the mill, have over the years set themselves more serious and transforming aspirations that along with the new life springing in the city centre will create as fine a community enterprise to match any in the new Europe.

Put your shoulder to the wheel, Mr Renshaw, and get pushing.

George Moffat (chairman, Manningham Mills Community Association), Selborne Grove, Bradford 9.

SIR - Much has been written in support of the UK for the Euro. These pro-Euros are prepared to hand over our country lock, stock and barrel to a bunch of unelected people who for the last seven years cannot get an auditor to sign their accounts.

Our great country is being run by a political chancer who has surrounded himself with like-minded power-hungry acolytes who stick with him so that they stay in their exalted positions.

His politicising and manipulation of government offices to further his own ends is a downright scandal.

The Euro is simply his next objective. If he can deliver the British people to the Euro leaders, the Presidency of Europe awaits him.

As a leader Tony Blair has an answer for everything and a solution for nothing.

He would hand over Great Britain to the Euro to further his own ends.

A Clarke, Calverley Bridge, Rodley.

SIR - When Mr Blair was invited in 1997 by a minority of the electorate to become the United Kingdom's first Labour Prime Minister after nearly 18 years of Toryism, and as a result of the lowest turnout for a general election since 1970, it appeared to many that he would and could be likened to the titles of some of the great books and novels of Charles Dickens.

There were, among the British public "Great Expectations" in his inaugural years, but alas after his recent New Year prophecies and resolutions, he has seen fit to offer us "Bleak House" and "Hard Times" and perhaps in view of the riots in Bradford and Oldham in 2001, "A Tale of Two Cities", while his rapport with President Bush could be likened to "Our Mutual Friend".

Perhaps Mr Blair may have received a copy of Sir Thomas More's novel "Utopia" as a Christmas present and is trying, hopefully, and literally, to take a leaf out of his book.

Donald Firth, Harrogate Street, Undercliffe.

SIR - On behalf of our president, David Carpenter, and members of Ilkley Moor Lions Club, may I take this opportunity to thank everyone who has supported us through the year 2002. Our two main fundraising events have been the annual duck race and the annual bonfire and fireworks display which have helped us to contribute to many of our projects, charity and service work during the year.

The support we have received from businesses and the public and the Red Lion in Burley-in-Wharfedale where we meet has been much appreciated and has contributed considerably towards our service work and our help to people less fortunate than ourselves.

We are grateful to the Wharfedale Squadron Air Training Corps for their continued help at the bonfire and joint efforts have been made between the Lions and the ATC Addingham Cubs, Ben Rhydding Scouts and Menston St John's Scouts. All these youth organisations have benefited from the money they raised.

Lions Clubs are proud of the fact that all the money they raise goes towards its service work and charity. Nothing is taken for administration. All costs are paid for by the Lions members themselves.

Jim Shelton, (secretary, Ilkley Moor Lions Club), Lawn Avenue, Burley-in-Wharfedale.

SIR - Israel is now the only state with nuclear weapons that does not admit to having such weapons. It has always refused to allow international inspection of the Dimona facility, and is among the few states that have refused to sign the nuclear non-proliferation treaty.

Israel maintains what is known as a policy of "nuclear ambiguity", saying that it will not be the first country to introduce them to the Middle East.

In 1986 Mordechai Vanunu, a former technician at the site, was jailed for 18 years for providing information about Dimona, including photos published in the UK's Sunday Times.

Hassan-Ali Davies, Allerton Road, Bradford.

SIR - Sid Brown should have done Wilfred Owen the courtesy of quoting him verbatim, retaining the rhyme and translating accurately (Letters, January 2).

What Owen actually wrote was:

"My friend, you would not tell with such high zest

To children ardent for some desperate glory

The old lie, 'Dulce et decorum est

Pro patria mori.'"

This is a quotation from the Roman poet Horace, hence "old lie", meaning "It is sweet and fitting, or seemly (not 'glorious' obviously!) to die for your country."

Christine M Woodward, Nab Wood Gardens, Shipley.

SIR - As Lord Ouseley knows Bradford so well, maybe he can inform us what proceedings can be taken with regards to people pestering us daily to buy our houses.

When they are told to stop asking we are given a load of abuse.

So how about it Lord Ouseley? Come to Bradford and have some of the same and then you will know the real Bradford, not the one where you put one foot in Bradford and the other miles away hoping it's not many minutes before the other follows.

D Burnett, Great Horton Road, Great Horton.