Letters to the Editor

There really are only two alternatives. A Victorian type of building in the mode of the City Hall or an ultra-modern geometric-designed edifice, which will force everyone to stop and gaze at it in awe.

The Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao shows what can be achieved if the will and the money are forthcoming.

By comparison I think the glass pyramid in Paris could never catch the imagination.

The out-of-this-world dream would be a covered walkway from the Photographic Museum to the new site.

The new hotels planned around Bradford would no doubt benefit from such a venture.

Let's hope the move for people preferring Leeds to us would be reversed.

Kenneth E Higgins, Carr Bottom Grove, Little Horton, Bradford 5.

SIR - On August 14 it was raining. I had to go to St Luke's Hospital for my six-monthly MOT (I am an epileptic). My wife came with me.

When we caught the bus back into the city centre after a long wait in the pouring rain, my wife and I went our separate ways.

I shuffled on to Hall Ings opposite Drake Street and waited for a bus to go up Leeds Road for 25 minutes - 11.20am to 11.45am.

The X6 limited stop came first, and a few people got on. A No 72 eventually came and I alighted the stop before Laisterdyke to call in one shop. Then I waited another 20 minutes in the rain for a bus to Thornbury roundabout.

Another X6 limited stop went by before a No 88 came along, and bumper to bumper behind that was a route No 15 bus followed immediately by another bus, the route number of which I missed, but behind that was a route No 72 bus.

Heading out of Bradford towards Leeds, all four of these buses passed through Laisterdyke between 12.20pm and 12.30pm.

Surely Mr Khadim Hussain, who has worked out the new bus rota/timetables, can do better than this?

R M Hazlett, Woodhall Terrace, Bradford 3.

SIR - While fully appreciative of the fact that a bus company is not a philanthropic institution, the consensus opinion of the bus travelling fraternity is that they are being taken for a ride, well and truly.

The dominating factor has to be shareholders, profits and salaries etc, etc, a simple fact of big business life.

From a personal point of concern, could the powers-that-be explain why the 614 now terminates at Moore Avenue instead of serving Wibsey village as in the past?

To shop in Wibsey, we now have to get two buses for three stops! As regards the 846: according to the new timetable this goes through to Shipley. It doesn't. It terminates at Five Lane Ends.

Bert Perry, Moore Avenue, Wibsey, Bradford.

SIR - I was dismayed to learn that the new Asda store on Rooley Lane is openly promoting halal meat products.

I respect the Muslim religion but, in view of British rules regarding the slaughter of animals, I am shocked that one leading supermarket has chosen to endorse this method.

The law of the land requires all animals and birds to be pre-stunned before slaughter, but Jewish and Muslim communities are exempt from this law.

In halal slaughter an animal or bird must be fully alive (no pre-stunning), its throat is cut, severing both jugular veins and carotid arteries, and it is left to bleed to death. It is a proven fact that animals suffer pain and distress during this slaughter.

The RSPCA has campaigned relentlessly for pre-stunning to be allowed. In New Zealand, animals slaughter by the halal method are now pre-stunned. It is a shame that this method cannot immediately be adopted in this country.

Your readers can lobby the outlets which sell halal products, and/or write to: The Rt Hon Nick Brown, Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, MAFF, Nobel House, 17 Smith Square, London SW1P 3JR.

Mrs E Bland, Oldfield, Keighley.

SIR - I am happy to explain to Tony Rawlinson (Letters, August 9) why I didn't support Labour's motion to set up a working party for "attracting more hi-tech industry to Shipley."

Had I thought this proposal would increase employment in Shipley, I would have voted for it. Setting up another talking shop, however, won't achieve this. The Council is already helping to develop land, without the proposed "working party", which could get in the way.

Furthermore, Shipley has a partnership to achieve economic development, currently covering only the town centre. Last year, Labour voted down Councillor John Carroll's (Conservative, Shipley West) proposal that its remit take in more of the town. Their latest policy implies either an opportunistic or inconsistent attitude.

Creating another group, with the existing partnership's track record of achievement, would result in confusion from potentially overlapping mandates, and send the wrong message to current partners: that their views are not wanted (why else set up another body?).

Labour's policy was released to the Council at only a few hours notice, inspiring little confidence that it was well thought through. I don't believe this motion served Shipley at all well. It is why I didn't support it.

Councillor David Herdson (Shipley West Ward), Norwood Avenue, Shipley.

SIR - The Government lacks sensitivity when it comes to the old and disabled. Human dignity is not enhanced by sops like fuel allowance, a free TV licence and now guaranteed half-price bus fares etc (T&A Aug 12). Nor are means-tested benefits the answer for they serve only to set insurmountable and stigmatising hurdles in place.

What campaigning groups for the old and disabled say they want from the State is not handouts which cordon them off from mainstream society but a decent income which enables them to live inclusively within it. What are the old and disabled supposed to do - tip their caps, feel grateful and say: "Thank you, Guv/Ma'am"? It all smacks of State paternalism.

It is hogwash to say the country cannot afford it. The Dome and Tony Blair's expensive flight to Tuscany prove otherwise. The truth is there is now no decent political will to find a decent political way to provide decent pensions as of right to the old and disabled.

New Labour has dissociated itself form a commitment to a universal Welfare State. It is sad that it has sold out its birthright and no longer fundamentally cares.

George and Margaret Riseborough (Campaign for Straight Principled Labour Against Sleaze and Hypocrisy in Bradford), Roper Lane, Queensbury.

CORRECTION: The letter published on Saturday about national newspaper coverage of Bradford City was from Paula Thornham, not Paul Thornham as stated. Our apologies for this inputting error.