The Council decision to continue to employ private security guards to patrol Bradford's city-centre car parks is a sensible one. The presence of the guards has apparently made a huge difference since the patrols began before Christmas, in the wake of a "name and shame" campaign to highlight the crime trouble spots.

Far too many motorists had been returning to their cars to find that they had been broken into or stolen. Apart from the distress caused to the owners, this situation was doing Bradford's reputation no good. Who wants to visit a city if there's a strong chance of becoming a victim of car crime?

We welcomed the Council's decision then to invest £3,000 of Council taxpayers' money in what at the time was intended to be a temporary scheme set up to reassure Christmas shoppers. And now we welcome the decision to turn the temporary patrols into permanent ones, given the substantial drop in the type of crimes they were introduced to target.

It is impossible to calculate the return on this investment in terms of increased trade for Bradford shops and greater peace of mind among companies whose bosses and employees use the car parks. However, there can be no doubt that secure parking is important to people's perception of a city.

If drivers can feel reasonably reassured that someone will be keeping an eye on their parked car, they are more likely to want to shop here and the companies for which they work are more likely to want to stay here.