Letters to the Editor

A basic principle of dealing with incidents involving hazardous materials is to contain the incident and avoid further contamination. For this reason the Fire Service decontamination unit and supporting appliances were positioned on Otley Road directly outside the entrance to sorting office.

This allowed fire service personnel to be decontaminated at the gateway to the sorting office and those postal workers who had to be decontaminated only had to cross the pavement to enter the unit for showering.

Had Charlie Browns' car park been available to carry out these operations, which it wasn't due to postal workers' cars in the car park before 8am, then this would only have resulted in involving a second premises in the incident and risk spreading the "then unknown" substances beyond the initial incident.

While we appreciate the frustrations caused by emergency incidents to individuals trying to go about their daily lives, our priorities must be the safety and well-being of those most directly at risk together with that of the wider general public.

P V Daly, Senior Operations Officer, West Yorkshire Fire Service, Birkenshaw

SIR - I had to use Bradford's new Interchange the other night. While it is better than the old one, when it is dark it is almost impossible to see if your bus is there because of the glass that has been used. Yet while you are on the bus you can see inside the Interchange perfectly. Should it not have been the other way round?

It seems that the planners never thought about people who have to use it at night.

Malcolm Firth, Dalcross Grove, West Bowling.

SIR - Bradford has a long way to go before it can consider itself a green city. The transport policies are heading in the right direction, because at least we have a bus company that runs regular services and is investing in dedicated bus routes. These have worked in Leeds and when operating will work here.

We have already created a road system heavily geared towards cars so no more investment should be made here (except where safety is a prime consideration). As for bikes in Bradford, this will be a problem because Bradford is very hilly.

One big problem at the moment is that my rubbish isn't recycled. I am one of the few who sorts out the rubbish and takes it to the recycling sites in a supermarket car park or puts it in the compost bin. Most people simply do not bother and the incentive must be given.

At the very least, the waste collected from our doorstep should be sorted into different bins, as happens in Leeds.

Phil Balcomb, Penny Hill Drive, Clayton.

SIR - Monday night's Bulls Player of the Year Awards at the Pennington was a tremendous success and enjoyed by everyone. The only down point of the evening was Mr John Pennington's treatment of parents of Academy players and people who have worked their socks off behind the scenes all year.

These people all had complimentary tickets from the Bulls, but were humiliated and made to feel like freeloaders by the Pennington staff.

After queueing for ages with everyone else, these people were asked to go to the front of the club and wait. They were then told with reference to people going in: "These people have paid for their tickets, you'll have to wait until they have all gone in".

Naturally this added insult to injury and the fiasco was only rectified by a Bulls club official who realised what was going on!

Mr Pennington should issue an apology to these people and see to it that it does not happen again!

Steven Spencer, Yardley Way, Low Moor.

John Pennington writes: "My instructed priority was people with VIP or purchased tickets. The event was very well attended but the organisers were unable to clarify how many complimentary tickets had been given out! A nightmare scenario was overcome by a 40-minute-delayed start, and being able (only just) to accommodate everyone. I am happy to apologise but was unaware that tickets had been given to helpers and parents of Academy players. As your correspondent says: 'It was a tremendous success and enjoyed by everyone,' a credit to Bradford and the Bulls. See you, with the cup, again, next year.

SIR - Many years ago my mother Mrs Frances Shackleton was a patient in St Luke's Hospital for a long time. I used to visit mostly at weekends (I was living in Colne, working, with a family of my own).

My mother's favourite song was The Desert Dong, so I asked for it to be played for her on the Family Favourites radio show.

When I went to visit my mother she said she had heard the request because the doctors and nurses all came to tell her to put her earphones on.

She told me next time I visited that I had started something. The hospital had now started their own requests programme on the hospital's own network and patients could ask for their own requests.

My mother died many years ago, but I always think about her and my favourite songs. Like her they are from the Desert Song.

I used to live in Manningham and went to school there. I always picture Bradford as it used to be many years ago. I joined the Women's Land Army when I was 17 in 1943, away from Bradford.

Mrs M G Ridehalgh, Keighley Road, Colne.

SIR - I do not agree with a ban on Category 3 consumer display fireworks to the public because a lot of well-organised non-professional events (schools/playgroups/

churches/residents and tenants and community associations etc) use these fireworks to put on their displays.

These people cannot afford to hire professionals to put them on, and to ban consumer display fireworks from sale would mean a lot of events going to the wall and fewer events for people to go to (especially in rural, isolated country areas and villages where there is little firework and bonfire event provision).

I would suggest, however, that people who purchase these should be given a free place on a manufacturer-supported training and awareness course so that people using consumer display fireworks know how to use and fire them safely.

Anthony Perkins, Plantation Street, Accrington, Lancashire.

SIR- I read with some sadness of the death of Ernest Smith (T&A, October 25). I worked at National Breakdown Recovery Club when the firm was based at Low Moor and moved to Pudsey with the company.

Ernest Smith was one of the true gentleman "bosses". I remember on one particular day when things were extremely busy and the controllers were working flat out. Mr Smith arrived in the control room and sat down and started dealing with breakdowns.

Then he organised tea and sandwiches for the staff who were working under extreme pressure. This was a mark of a real "people person" and a lead that could be followed by some of the so-called bosses in today's working environment.

Ernest Smith will be sadly missed by the older staff of NBRC

Jan Sobczak, Hawkshead Close, Little Horton, Bradford. SIR - Re the letter from F Rushworth about able-bodied drivers using the disabled parking spaces in Morrisons car park at Five Lane Ends.

I agree wholeheartedly. I am not a disabled person, but I am a mother with two small children, and the parent-and-child parking places are exactly the same whenever I shop there.

On a number of occasions I have seen people getting in and out of cars with no children in tow. It really maddens me. Some people can't seem to bear it if they are not as close to the main doors as possible. It isn't fair. People have no consideration at all.

A couple of weeks ago I asked a man very nicely why was he parking in a parent-and-child place and his reply was: "I pay my taxes".

I could only walk away in disgust. It's a shame people can't think about others and show some common decency. K Wood, Grasmere Road, Bolton Road, Bradford.