SIR - For the past three months I have been trying to persuade Bradford Council to move ever-increasing piles of fly-tipped rubbish which the usual considerate Bradfordians have left outside my back yard.

To date I have had a sofa, wall unit, large pieces of fencing and a car engine left outside my yard. Every time I ring, I talk to a different person who says they'll get on to it and sort it out, and all that happens is that the piles of rubbish grow and grow (actually the sofa's disappeared, so I'm not wasting my time paying council tax then).

Today I came home and found a travellers' encampment on the land behind my house - which as all regular T&A readers know will mean even more mess.

I give up. I've been a proud Bradfordian all my life, and everywhere I've travelled I've had to stand up for my hometown. But not any more. If everyone else concerned with the city is prepared to see it drown in a tidal wave of rubbish, why bother?

Bradford is a sick city. I don't want to hang around any longer to watch the patient in its death throes.

R.Spence, Hillside Road, Bradford 3

SIR - Thank you for publishing my letter of July 30 in reply to Mr Brotherton. It seems that he has misunderstood the letter. I never mentioned Muslims. I wrote about Asians, which obviously would include Muslims and non-Muslims alike.

My argument was that speaking another language at home is not a barrier to success at school. Non-Muslims also speak different languages at home. The difference is possibly in the schools which they attend.

At Catholic schools where some Asians, both Muslim and non-Muslim, attend, all children irrespective of race, creed or colour are expected to do well and indeed do so.

As for Mr Brotherton's comment about English-speaking peoples and what might have been, it's small-minded and shows continued imperialist mentality. If the British government had got its act together quicker the 1939-45 war might have been avoided.

All the ethnic peoples who had little choice or were indeed invited to settle here, to help rebuild Britain, would have been more than happy to have remained in their own country. My parents and thousands like them have dedicated their lives not only to their own homelands but also to the countries they settled in, enriching them and forever being grateful.

Stefania Lewkowicz, Carrbottom Road, Bradford 2

SIR - I have been invited to address a branch of the Labour Party's Policy Seminar on "Pensioner Poverty". The first question that springs to mind is, "Why should there be pensioner poverty?"

We are told that we are the fourth richest country on earth, but when it comes to providing for those who have helped it to become so, we are forgotten. Well, those who have ambitions at the next election had better watch out. There are more than 11 million of us, and we shall exercise our right at the ballot box.

I read Mike Coatesworth's article (T&A, August 8) and can endorse everything he said. Good for you, Mike Coatesworth, and there are a lot more stories like that, unfortunately.

However, our action group welcomes your experiences and grievances so that we might take action against these absurd anomalies. We are preparing the battleground for a war against pensioner poverty, in all its forms, so join our group and feel the strength of unity.

We are angry at being the poorest in Europe, suffering low priority policing and low priority health care.

Write or phone at the address below. It only costs 50p to join.

Audrey Raistrick, secretary, Retired Peoples Action Group, 44 Oakdale Drive, Bradford, BD10 0JF (01274 633661).

SIR - Mubarik Iqbal (Letters, August 7) rightly scorns the legitimacy of President Bush following his farcical election. She also rightly condemns and mourns the indiscriminate killing of innocent Muslims in the West Bank and Afghanistan.

Sadly, however, as in her previous letters, she fails to even mention, let alone sympathise with non-Muslim victims of violence.

Israeli schoolchildren, blown to bits by the unspeakable suicide bombers of Hamas, and those massacred by the insane butchers of September 11 last - are they not the equal in innocence as any Muslim victim?

Just some acknowledgement of this self-evident fact would increase Mubarik's credibility immeasurably among non-Muslim readers of her letters.

Peter Wilson, Thornhill Grove, Calverley.

SIR - Re the quote from Council officer Richard Wixey on the matter of delay in fridge removal (T&A, August 7). In fact the regulation emanates from the European Union and successive English governments have been daft enough to rubber stamp various regulations from this source.

T Hill, Harbour Crescent, Bradford 6.

SIR - John Tudor's reply to my letter concerning the financing of Bradford Bulls by Bradford ratepayers was printed on the same day as two letters from elderly ratepayers concerned that their homes were to be closed because the Council cannot (or will not) support them.

How on earth can Mr Tudor and other Bulls supporters justify the spending of our money to prop up a professional sports club when old people's homes are being closed, schools shut down, and the centre of the town continues to fall into disrepair and is abandoned at dusk because of the danger of muggings.

As for the comment about Trevor Foster, I knew Trevor in the 1960s and the majority of his good work with the youth of the city was through the Police Boys Club in Walker Drive, where he spent many hours in youth work.

There is no justification in using more than £5 million of public money to prop up a club that as World Champions should have no problems supporting both itself and its own ground.

Tony Kenny, Ronald Drive, Bradford 7

SIR - There have recently been several letters in your paper, singing the praises of the BRI, to which I should like to add my voice.

My husband has recently spent two weeks on Ward 9, having been rushed in as an emergency. We were both impressed by the prompt arrival of the ambulance, and the efficiency of the paramedics, also the staff in casualty.

As for Ward 9: the hard-working nurses, so caring, efficient and pleasant, the doctors likewise. And the food was excellent.

The BRI is second to none, and we are privileged to have it in Bradford.

Mrs A E Taylor, Glenside Road, Windhill.

SIR - Re your report in the T&A (August 6) headed "Cattle grid probe after driver hurt," I was amazed to read that the police officers who attended the scene were able there and then to say that it wasn't the driver's fault.

I think Sgt Roger Birkett's comment most apt: "Most things are safe if you are driving at an appropriate speed."

I know that I, and I'm sure many others drive too quickly over cattle grids. I'll take more care from now on, if only for the car's sake!

P E Bird, Nab Wood Crescent, Shipley.

SIR - I couldn't agree more about the menace of the pigeons in Bingley's Myrtle Walk. I have spoken to people I have seen feeding them there. There has always been an indignant response, implying the poor little things need food.

They are wild creatures quite capable of finding their own food. These misguided people should feed them in their own gardens if they are so eager to do so.

Perhaps they will then get fed up with the mess they leave behind.

Mrs M Cook, Hall Bank Drive, Bingley.