Street traders have their place in a city centre, but only in strictly controlled circumstances. The licensed traders who sell from attractive stalls or barrows on designated sites enhance the choice available to shoppers by complementing the wares on offer at the nearby shops. They add to the diversity of the "retail experience".

However, traders who set up their stalls with no official blessing are a different matter entirely and Bradford's City Centre Manager is right to seek an extension of the area in which their activities are prohibited.

It could be argued that the traders are only trying to make a living. That is true. And if in making their living they were attracting people into Bradford, thereby also boosting trade for the shops and stores, they would be very welcome.

But unfortunately they can have the opposite effect. The City Centre Manager argues, for example, that a mobile food vendor in Morley Street would take trade from a proposed caf bar and restaurant. She cites the example of a newsagent in Wardley House who claims that street vendors are affecting his business.

And she quite rightly points out that the visible presence of these traders harms the overall image of the area.

Bradford needs to encourage entrepreneurial flair at every level. But above all it needs to encourage the established shops and stores and avoid any developments which could damage the image of our much-maligned city centre.

If that means that street traders have to be outlawed from a wider area than at present, so be it.

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.