For the rest of Britain, it was another night of race rioting in a northern town.

For the people of Bradford, the weekend's violence was a devastating blow to the future of the city's race relations.

For Mohammed Amran of the Commission for Racial Equality, the riots have destroyed not only a community but the good work that has been done in the area.

"It has destroyed Bradford," he said, as he visited the smouldering site of Manningham Labour Club, torched during Saturday night's rioting. "What happened was appalling. I don't know how we will recover from this."

His shock and sadness is felt in ripples across the district, as Bradford people pick over their own post-mortems of the carnage.

As people digest newspaper reports and footage showing war zone-like scenes of their own city there is both a sense of disbelief and a fear of what lies ahead for Bradford.

The district has to look at how it can repair fractured relations between communities, damaged further by the weekend's events.

Bradford Council leader Councillor Margaret Eaton says the way ahead is to focus on building strong links between communities, to promote better understanding between different cultures.

She called for an analysis of the work being done to improve race relations in the Manningham area.

"It's too simplistic to say not enough is being done," she said. "One of the first things the Council needs to do is to try to build barriers between communities where relationships were damaged.

"We've all got to sit down together and look at the issues thrown up. There are no simple answers."

After the Manningham Riots of 1995 the Bradford Commission report into the disorders saw education and training of the younger generation, and their involvement in local politics, as being one of the main factors determining a decent future for Bradford.

Five years later, as Bradford picks up the pieces from the weekend's events on the streets of Manningham and Whetley Hill - events largely caused by aggressive young men - this seems as far away as ever.

But in the eyes of many people, the violence was simply a crime issue rather than a result of any failure to address race relations problems.

Gerry Sutcliffe, Labour MP for Bradford South, said: "We have to put it into context. There were 1,000 youngsters in a population of 70,000 - a small amount of people who were there to cause havoc.

"This community has been talking to each other - but there is a core of people who don't want to be involved and want to create no-go areas. We will not let this happen."

Marsha Singh, Labour MP for Bradford West, said: "We have to make sure there are resources for police in Bradford.

"We will be talking to the Home Secretary about police measures, whether they need more powers in terms of sorting public order.

"We have to put the events into some sort of perspective. It was nothing to with deprivation, this was sheer criminality."

Bradford's Race Review, to be launched this week, is expected to put forward ways of improving race relations in the future.

Home Secretary David Blunkett says it will deal with the wider implications of the weekend's events.

"Clearly the responsibility for taking up suggestions in this report will lie with civic and community leaders, whose energy and commitment must now be focused on re-building confidence," he said.

"Civic leaders will have to address the problems raised by those who have caused damage to their own neighbourhood and by so doing have reduced the chances of the very improvements they wish others to deliver."

Sir Herman Ouseley, heading the review, says Bradford suffers from an unhealthy gang culture and a failure of children from different ethnic backgrounds to mix in schools.

Sir Herman wants to see young people from all backgrounds in politics and positions of leadership to build Bradford's future - recommendations which are echoed in the 1996 Commission report.

As Bradford struggles to pick itself up and look to the future, its only hope may lie in the pages of the Race Review - and how its eagerly awaited flagship initiatives are put into practice.