SIR - I was appalled to see a film on TV on Friday, April 13, showing a flock of sheep being chased around a field and men with guns taking pot shots at them. The flock included young lambs. They must have been petrified.

Have the men from MAFF gone mad? Is this what they call "humane killing"? Also did these sheep have foot and mouth or were they just being killed for killing's sake?

Even on the news this weekend, a flock of sheep near Todmorden have been culled and the test for foot and mouth was negative. Was this necessary?

The powers-that-be keep telling us they have things under control. I wouldn't think so.

Then we get the farmer whose flock of sheep, which are lambing and are in the field which is like a mud bath, can't move them to better grazing and drier land. They have to stay where they are and slowly starve and die. What a scandalous situation.

M Illingworth, Dudley Hill Road, Undercliffe.

SIR - The decision by the Government's Meat Hygiene Service to re-open the Shelf Halal Abattoir is both insensitive to local farmers and questionable on grounds of foot and mouth control.

Farmers in Queensbury and surrounding areas remain locked in their farms with their animals. They will be rightly furious that the abattoir at the centre of the local outbreak has been told to get on with business as usual while they face ruin.

It could be five months or more before farmers are able to start rebuilding what is left of their livelihoods. It is a slap in the face to farmers that the abattoir is up and running within weeks.

While animals arriving at the abattoir can only be sourced from so-called "clean" areas, we have seen that the spread of foot and mouth has been rapid, and it can take weeks for infected animals to show symptoms. This could result, potentially, in new infected animals being brought back into the Shelf and Queensbury area.

Surely this is the last thing that should have been done to prevent more infection and more suffering in our local farming community.

Graeme Tennyson, Conservative Prospective Parliamentary Candidate for Bradford South, Otley Road, Shipley.

SIR - It would now seem that the Government is looking no further than killing and vaccination as the means of preventing the spread of this disease. Yet it was only a few months ago that a government report called for orthodox medicine and complementary medicine to work more closely together.

So far I see no evidence of this happening.

It is a fact that the homeopathic treatment of animals has been carried out by homeopathic vets for many years, with excellent results. Homeopathy is extremely effective especially in epidemics. Indeed, during the last outbreak of foot and mouth in 1967, the remedy Borax was used as the genus epidemicus.

Yet it would appear that despite the findings of their own report, the Government (or its advisers) refuses to look any further than methods that are not wanted and are quite plainly not working.

Homeopathic treatment is safe, does not have any side effects and will not affect the sale or export of animals for human consumption.

So why are we not even considering its use?

Anthony Robinson, Bingley Homeopathic Practice, Bradley Street, Park Road, Bingley.

SIR - The 2001 Census forms are being distributed now.

Among the groups of British citizens who have been given special classification are the Scots and the Irish. As a fellow Celt, I am pleased with this identification. I regret that there is no similar recognition of the "Welsh".

Despite efforts over the past three years, Welsh organisations have been unable to get the National Statistics Office to treat everyone in England and Wales like the Irish. Recently a concession has been made. Hopefully your enumerator will make you aware of it.

If he does not, it is for you to remind him. Tell him you wish in the category which offers you British, Irish, Other, to write under "Other" - Welsh.

Questions of ethnicity were first introduced into the Census of 1991. Changes made to this question result in a new and wider-ranging question requiring those completing forms to indicate both their ethnic group and their cultural background.

Therefore anyone Welsh who wishes to have this stated in the Census form has the right to have it so included. The National Statistics Office will produce thematic maps which will allow visual presentation of Welsh and other communities throughout the UK.

Glyn G Roberts (assistant secretary, Bradford and District St David's Society), Cliffe Wood Close, Bradford 9.

SIR - Let's replace the misinformation, panic and rumour about the Sustrans Bierley cycle route spread by Howard Bancroft, Councillor Ruding, et al, with facts

1.There is a very short cycle lane on Bierley Lane from Newhall Road to the ring road only.

2.The 5000-plus miles of Sustrans cycle routes do not encourage motor bikes (although they are an occasional problem) and vandalism. People cycle on them instead.

3. You can't see the fishing dams from the proposed route and bicycles don't frighten fish.

4. People living next to the Spen Valley route (of which this is an extension) have built gateways on to it and held barbecues alongside it, and regard it as an amenity.

5. It won't endanger the BMX riders (!), since the BMX track will be fenced.

Every time someone proposes any kind of cycle route in Bradford, people come screaming out of the woodwork prophesying the end of civilisation as we know it.

I've never come across such a bunch of moaning, mithering, whining, complaining, whingeing, hand-wringing, doom-mongering, nay-saying, pessimistic, mean-spirited, misery-guts. It's just a cycle path, for God's sake.

Mike Healey (spokesman, Bradford Cycling Action Group), Dyehouse Road, Oakenshaw

SIR - We the undersigned attended the meeting of the Area Planning Panel at Shipley Town Hall on April 5. Our particular interest was the application for 17 Park Road, Menston.

The application was dealt with in a very fair and very proficient manner by all concerned.

We would like to express our thanks to the panel for the excellent way in which the case put forward for the objectors was presented, for the request for a site meeting, and for the display of unity from all the councillors and others concerned.

The application was refused.

R A Armstrong and H M V Rainforth, Croft Way, Menston.

SIR - How encouraging it was to read of the latest initiative to raise the standard of post-16 education in our area (T&A, April 14).

This is yet another indication that such opportunities are just there for young folk on our doorstep.

In the last few years it has been evident that the excellent programmes available from such institutions as the Open University (0113 245 1466) are taking into account the needs, in particular, of lone parents, ethnic minorities and others who have to watch their pennies in a continued effort to democratise education.

Well done, T&A, for supporting such initiatives!

Sid Brown, Glenhurst Road, Shipley.