Letters to the Editor

This amenity would be sorely missed as there is no other allotment site within easy reach of local residents.

Access to the Whetley Grove site is restricted to two possible routes, both through narrow, already-congested streets in residential areas. The allotments are also bounded on two sides by housing for the elderly, which again makes it an unsuitable site for a school.

I would request that the Council reconsider its options and find a more suitable site which would not deprive local people of one of the few remaining green spaces left in inner-city Bradford.

Mrs B R Sheard, Whetley Grove, Girlington.

SIR - As regular visitors to Bradford, my wife and I have been attending Bradford Festival events since it began.

The most irritating aspect of the Festival this year was the defensive stance taken by the new organisers in response to justified criticisms made by the expert team who had put together previous festivals (T&A, July 8). To accuse Allan Brack and Dusty Rhodes of making anti-Bradford statements is astonishing in its cheek.

These men and others made the festival what it was and attracted many like us to attend and bolster the local economy every year.

We expect to see improvements to the festival next year if we are to come again. The excuse of only having five months to organise it isn't good enough. How come they won the contract if they could not deliver?

Perhaps the current political leadership did not like the fact the real festival had blossomed under Labour control?

Robert Hogarth, Felixstowe Close, Hartlepool.

SIR - I am a season ticket holder at Valley Parade and have watched this summer's events unfold with horror. We are now reaching a pivotal moment and it seems amazing that this city could be without a club after August 1.

Bradford City, and all that it means to so many people, could simply cease to exist.

I urge all creditors and season ticket holders to vote yes to the Creditors' Voluntary Agreement and to ensure the club survives. The alternative is too awful to contemplate.

Rob Hunt, Green Lane, Redhill, Surrey.

SIR - I have noted with some alarm the number of letters on the subject of car-clamping in Haworth. Haworth is a jewel in the local tourist crown and visitors should be treated with respect rather than suffer the expensive consequences of overstaying their welcome by as little as one minute.

As one with lifelong family and even Bront connections with the village, I would recommend visitors travelling by car to avoid the privately-run car park in question (at the junction of Change Gate and North Street), which should be reserved for coaches only.

If you are coming by car to Haworth, as people usually do, from Keighley via Mill Hey, Station Road and Bridgehouse Lane, instead of turning right into Rawdon Road, you should turn left at the top of Bridgehouse Lane on to Sun Street and then take a right turn which leads to spacious council car parks, offering easy pedestrian access to the Church, Parsonage and Main Street.

In these latter car parks no clamping is in force.

Haworth can ill afford to lose visitors whose only wish is to enjoy the Bront heritage, and they should be encouraged to re-visit and spread the good word to others.

Derek Mozley, Moorhead Terrace, Shipley.

SIR - Regarding the letter from Charles Nolda, Employers Organisation for Local Government. Mr Nolda conveniently uses scaremongering tactics while avoiding the real facts regarding this year's pay claim.

FACT 1 - Over 20 per cent of local government staff doing vital jobs in homecare, cleansing and schools earn less than £5 per hour.

FACT 2 - The average basic wage for full-time employees in the UK is £19,406 but two thirds of council staff earns less than £13,000.

FACT 3 - Overall, women in local government earn just 66 per cent of their male colleagues' pay and the gap is widening.

We all want to see improved public services but this cannot be done without investing in the staff that provides them; the issue of low pay in local government can no longer be ignored.

Mr Nolda would best serve the employers' organisation by getting back round the table and starting to negotiate. The union's door is open.

Liz Devlin, UNISON Branch chairman, Auburn House, Upper Piccadilly, Bradford.

SIR - May I thank all the staff - including sister, nurses and cleaners - on Ward 24 who helped make my short stay at the BRI so enjoyable. The food was good and everything was so clean.

Mrs E Riley, Basil Street, Bradford 5.

SIR - Just over one year after the riots, very little has changed in Heaton and Manningham.

We now have an empty space ("For Sale" - what hope!) in place of the burned-out motor showroom; a happily and expensively-restored McCann's Hardware; a totally blank space where the Labour Club used to be (and no suggestion about its restoration!); and the Junction restored and in business again.

But Arthur's Bar is just a wreck, the Upper Globe remains a derelict burned-out eyesore, and the site of the Lower Globe has virtually disappeared into a car-parking area.

This is not much to show for a year's 'progress' and I cannot see that the attitudes of the majority of the people have changed, except to become more entrenched. I find this all very sad and disheartening.

Ian R McDougall, Hawkswood Avenue, Heaton.

SIR - I and many other parents of pupils at Cooper Lane Primary School I and are bemused by the proposal to close a full and well-performing school. It is planned to merge Cooper Lane with the recently-opened Westwood Park School, many of whose pupils have already had the upheaval of moving to a new school after the two-tier system was installed.

In the Horton Bank Top/Clayton Heights area, new housing developments are still being completed. Just where are the powers-that-be proposing to send the children from these new estates? Do they care about the children of Bradford?

My two small children have been registered to attend Cooper Lane since the week they were born, such is my faith in this excellent school. We must and will fight to keep both schools open!

Sharon Halmshaw, Mandale Road, Horton Bank Top, Bradford.

SIR - Regarding the report in your newspaper that OAP and disabled persons concessionary fares are to be increased by 50 per cent.

We find that this increase is totally unwarranted, particularly as there are several bus services in the Keighley area that have been reduced to one every hour and travellers now have to spend a greater amount of time in the bus station waiting for buses. The increase to concessionary fares is yet another strain on vulnerable OAPs and disabled people.

The Government keeps stressing that they would like people to make more of public transport but this type of action does not encourage this policy.

There are several other countries in the EU which operate schemes within their borders for disabled people and OAPs to travel anywhere FREE at off-peak times.

It is hoped that the WYPT/METRO councillors will bear these comments in mind when making their final decision on the matter of these increases.

C Waddington, Denby Road, Woodhouse, Keighley.