SIR - I take issue with Michael Stewart who rues the proliferation of "pound shops" in the context of change over the last ten years (Letters, May 25).

Regeneration as a process might best be started from where you are and what you have. What is important is that coin turns over at ever-increasing speed and volume (Keynes), not necessarily how much or how little each transaction represents.

What is most wrong with current regeneration policy is that it is almost entirely aspirational. If grass roots and innate enterprise were encouraged (somehow) then something more might grow from it.

Why not encourage "pound shop" development? For example lay on busses to outlying towns offering free travel, offer guided tours and maps. Why not promote what we have? While the few well-off in Bradford take their money to Leeds why don't we seek to draw in the many of lesser means from around the region?

I despair of plans to flood the city centre and build lofty wannabe yuppie developments. Whatever happened to Yorkshire grit, graft and pragmatism?

The pound shops of Bradford have done more to keep Bradford alive than the Council has achieved in practice with all its multi-million pound pipedreams.

David Franklin, High Street, Thornton