SIR - Now the Provincial building in the centre of Bradford is coming down and plans are to have street cafes and a small arts centre, could this not be altered slightly to a modern art gallery/concert room or gallery/theatre with caf and tourist information under one roof?

This would not only help to hide the drainpipes in Aldermanbury, but would replace so much of what the city of Bradford has lost since the early 1980s.

Cartwright Hall is too far out of town and has much of it devoted to a permanent collection which rarely moves and Asian artefacts. Also the Priestley Centre is in need of replacement, preferably in the central area, and generous aid.

The Capital of Culture bid 2008 would have a shot in the arm with a pleasant gallery/caf area opposite City Hall, easily reached by visitors coming by bus and train.

If this seems too ambitious for the city fathers, they should send a delegation to see improvements on a vast scale at cities such as Sheffield, Leeds, Manchester and Hull, effected with the help of generous lottery funding.

Private funding rarely provides buildings of architectural merit.

Joan and Leslie Warburton, Bradford Road, Shipley.

SIR - Once again, Bradford Council shows no respect for its past, in allowing the slow destruction of Lister's Mill, the finest example of its kind in Europe. Has Bradford Council got a death wish on its old buildings?

Whereas other cities have renovated and restored their old buildings, Bradford Council relishes knocking them down! No doubt the Wool Exchange would have been knocked down. Obviously this must have been a step too far, so they covered it with a modern glass front!

Mornington Road Methodist Church in Bingley is the latest casualty of the mass destruction of our past. Rawson Market, Kirkgate Market, The Swan Arcade, to name but a few. No doubt Lister's Mill will deteriorate to a point where it becomes unsafe, then Bradford Council will happily step in and knock it down. Maybe that was always the plan. Look what happened to Rawson Market.

K Cliff, Southdown Road, Baildon.

SIR - Regarding the letter from Naila Ali (T&A, June 29). While I agree that parents should choose what school their child should go to, it's not up to the education authority to put a child in a school miles from where they live.

It's the same old story again. I feel that in the area where you're living, obviously your child should enter that school nearest to them. In all honesty, the reason we have schools where there are mostly white or Asian is simply because of the area they are in.

In an area such as Heaton, it is mainly an Asian-populated area, so your child would be going to a school with mainly Asians. Whereas if you live in an area where the population is mainly white, obviously you want your child to go to that school. People will always want this for their children.

I suggest you to move areas if you want your child to go to a school where it is mixed race, because the education authority has every right to put children in the school nearest to them. It makes sense, and if all children were sent to a school miles away, that wouldn't be fair. It's got nothing to do with educational apartheid, it's just the way things are, and should be so for the sake of our children.

K Wood, Grasmere Road, Bradford 2.

SIR - Bradford is a dump; it used to be a nice city years ago. Reading the articles in the T&A (July 2), who do these councillors, Eaton, Greenwood, and Sunderland, think they are kidding? City of Culture; I don't think so!

Drunks sitting all over in the city centre. If you go down at night, you will get mugged. Everywhere you go, rubbish all over.

Why don't the Council prosecute these people for dumping rubbish? They know who they are. Why should the rest of the ratepayers pay for certain people's rubbish to be cleaned up? Make them bin it like we have to do. Come on councillor Hawksworth, you have the power; use it!

Michael Breen, Bolton Hall Road, Bradford 2

SIR - In the T&A (June 26; "Vote on elected mayor scrapped") you quote me as saying that "local people could still force a referendum if they collected petitions bearing the signatures of a fifth of electors".

In fact, as I said in my statement to Parliament on June 25, the rules on mayoral referendums mean that if five per cent or more of local electors - not a fifth- have signed a petition, the council will be required to hold such a poll.

Nick Raynsford, Minister of State for Local Government and the Regions