Letters to the Editor

It's not every day you see such a positive gathering with a focus on Bradford. For the Capital of Culture bid to have brought together nearly 40 MPs and Lords from all major parties to talk about my city and its future was a great achievement in itself. The MPs came from constituencies across Yorkshire and from much further afield.

Paul Brookes, who is leading the bid team, spoke about the desire of Bradford to put the recent images of upheaval and unrest behind and to focus on a future where diversity of race, skills and experience is celebrated as one of the great strengths of our city. I can't agree more.

My work means I am constantly meeting people all over the world. I love talking about my roots and remembering the great heritage we have in the city and I can't think of anything better for Bradford than having something like the Capital of Culture 2008 to shout about.

Martin McEvoy, Artistic Director, London City Opera.

SIR - Councillor Anne Hawkesworth, executive member for the environment, recently stated Bradford wishes to show its commitment to disabled people.

I ask as a disabled person what commitment she is talking about and what facilities are available? I am a stroke survivor who needs to use a wheelchair to get around. I was recently at a conference at City Hall. The only lift I could use was the goods lift as the other available one is too small to accommodate a chair properly and a person to help operate it.

Has Coun Hawkesworth recently checked the state of Bradford's footpaths or attempted to travel around Bradford without using the roads and find out the number of dropped kerbs without access on the other side of the road?

I challenge the councillors concerned with the bid for the Special Olympics to use either an electric chair or be pushed by another manually from St Luke's to the city centre and see the historic sites in Bradford, Capital of Culture, without decent access.

Peter Boots, Falmouth Avenue, Bradford 3.

SIR - How perceptive of Mike Priestley from his well-paid job in his nice office to advise us poor, uninformed pensioners not to waste our time on irrelevancies like free bus passes for pensioners but to campaign vigorously for better pensions, presumably so he and his contemporaries can enjoy them without any effort on their part when they retire.

Would it not be more sensible for him and his age group to campaign with us (as things are looking bleak for his generation) and really change things.

Presumably he does not know that campaigning for bus passes is only one aspect of our campaign. We are campaigning with the National Pensioners Convention for better pensions, campaigning for the two-and-a-half million pensioners living in poverty often going without meals to make ends meet.

Tell them 20p is a good deal. And incidentally when did he see a bus full of workers? We are campaigning against age discrimination, deaths by hypothermia, through inadequate pensions, loss of care places, etc etc etc. Need I go on?

J R Smith (group chairman, Retired People's Action Group), Flawith Drive, Fagley.

l Mike Priestley writes: "I regularly see buses full of workers in the morning and teatime rush hours."

SIR - As a low-paid worker forking out the best of £500 per year for a Metrocard, I can heartily endorse Mike Priestley's comments about free passes for OAPs.

Travelling in rush hour is bad enough with overcrowded buses packed with full paying passengers. It would be simply impossible to board if pensioners rode for free.

I think the present concessions are generous (I'm not that far off my bus pass). In North Yorks and the West Country (the only other two I am acquainted with) they are far less generous.

So I too think the retired people's lobby would do far better campaigning for better state pensions, reduced council tax etc etc.

So come on OAPs. Consider working people. Well written Mike.

Jean Botley, Vale Mill Lane, Haworth.

SIR - We must give a vote of thanks to John Tudor for clearing up the confusion over the use of Odsal by the Bulls (Letters, July 17).

There I was believing that we, the ratepayers, were featherbedding a professional sports club with £300,000 of direct aid, backed up with another £650,000 per annum of maintenance and running costs, with several "small" community grants, in exchange for a game called "Bulltag".

Thank you, Mr Tudor, for putting the record straight on this. Should you get your way and we, the backers of the club, are given the opportunity to cast our vote on this arrangement, I will of course agree that closing swimming pools and sports centres and allowing building on our inner-city parks and sports pitches is far preferable to asking that the "world club champions" should - horror of horrors! - pay their way!

Tony Kenny, Ronald Drive, Bradford 7.

SIR - Both India and Pakistan have occupied parts of Kashmir and continue to make "claims" on the entire territory but neither has a legal right under international law. The 13 million people of "Jammu-Kashmir" have an "absolute title" to self-determination under the UN Charter and it is the denial of this right that has led to 55 years of carnage in Kashmir.

The international community has long ignored the plight of Kashmiris. New and imaginative steps are needed to bring about a permanent end to the hostilities in this "world's most dangerous" conflict and to stop arming one side or the other.

Any attempts to turn the Line-of-Control in Kashmir into an international border will face fierce resistance from the Kashmiris on both sides, who already see the LoC as a "Berlin Wall" dividing their communities by force.

The solution lies in the withdrawal of Indian and Pakistani armies to the 1947 position as envisaged in the UN resolutions to let the Kashmiris decide their own political fate.

Sagir Ahmed for Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front UK/Europe, PO BOX 55, Bradford.

SIR - What memories Mrs Longstaff's letter brought back to me about the Ravenscliffe estate (North of Watford, July 6). I lived there from 1930 to 1956. There was poverty in those days the like of which is unknown today with all the grants and social security benefits but we knew how to enjoy ourselves at little expense by our own efforts.

The estate in those days was lovely - clean and tidy and with its sylvan setting we couldn't have wished to live in a nicer place.

Just before I moved away the Council had started an experiment. As houses became vacant they began moving problem families in among the long-established tenants, hoping the latter would serve as an example.

It was a failure because the decent tenants gradually grew tired of trying to keep their homes nice and asked for a transfer on to the new Thorpe Edge estate which was being built at the time.

I could weep when I read about Ravenscliffe estate now. I remember watching the foundation stone being laid for the Methodist Church and attended there with my parents until I removed, and what a well-attended, happy and thriving church it was.

Mrs R Robinson, Silwood Drive, Eccleshill.

SIR - On Monday, July 15, my wife and I went to Knowles Park for a game of bowls. As I was unlocking the gate, a young lad grabbed my bowls bag and scampered away.

My woods are of no use to anyone else and I can easily prove ownership. My family had purchased the bag and its contents for my birthday.

If the culprit will return them or someone may know him, I will give a substantial reward. Please contact me on Bradford 689504.

E King, Whitehall Road, Bradford 11.

SIR - So Bradford remains a lap dancing free zone (T&A, July 20). What a pity that there isn't a competition for the title of European Capital of Sanctimonious Censorship, because Bradford would win in a canter - with the accent very firmly on the "cant".

Peter Wilson, Thornhill, Calverley.