Indignant children have launched a letter-writing campaign to defend themselves against being labelled as litter louts.

Youngsters at Bowling Park Primary School in Bradford were spurred into action after the Telegraph & Argus published readers' letters blaming children for the city's litter problem.

The campaigners from Turquoise Class, taught by Janet Bentley, took to the streets of their neighbourhood to do some sleuthing.

They found that heaps of litter in their area contained mattresses, trashed televisions and broken glass - and concluded that it had all been dumped by grown-ups. And they decided to write letters to the T&A defending their peers.

Nine-year-old Samaya Ayaz wrote: "I am writing to you because I have read an unfair statement in the newspaper. Adults usually are the ones who spoil the good nature of the environment. They are the ones who throw nappies on the street, dispose of all sorts of house items etc. It is mainly adults' fault, not ours."

Classmate Darren Weston added: "The rubbish is broken glass, mattresses, building rubble, televisions and cardboard boxes, so stop blaming us!"

Danielle Poutch wrote: "Now I think this is very unfair because children don't carry old mattresses with them on their way back from school."

Mrs Bentley, their class teacher, said: "We are looking at the issues of pollution and litter as part of our geography curriculum. I read them a letter from the letters page of the T&A which was saying that children were dropping litter. They were quite indignant and said that it wasn't them.

"We do recognise that we do make a lot of litter with our crisp packets and things, but when we went to have a look round our local area what we found was adult-type litter. We have quite a problem with fly tipping in this area particularly at the bottom of Bowling Park."

She added: "At first we were going to write letters to the Council too, but we've noticed it has actually been clearing up. The problem is as soon as it does, people dump more rubbish."

She added. "We have talked about pollution and endangered species and they do get very indignant - they feel it should be up to grown-ups to make the world nicer for them to inherit," she said.

Councillor Mukhtar Ali (Lab, Bowling) said: "I agree with the children, and I think strong action needs to be taken against people who engage in this unlawful activity."

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