SIR – I can assure Councillor Taylor of Halifax (Letters, July 12) the anger over the scrapping of committed school rebuilding programmes is not in anyway feigned.

His analysis is one I wholly disagree with about the response to the speculator-driven economic crisis.

Instead of tackling the sources of the problem, the slash-and-burn approach to schools is just what many experienced economists warn against.

Thousands of local private sector jobs are at risk, as well as the loss of 3,800 school places in a growing city – those places are needed. Talk of parental choice is hollow when you do not have places to offer.

The loss of these schemes is compounded by the failure to even tell, for example, Queensbury School that it was on the hit-list.

No, Coun Taylor, the loss of such investment is inept and poor economics.

It damages children and tips the economy back towards the engineered recessionary model of the 1980s.

I will fight this and welcome the support of many Tories and Lib Dems who are appalled by the sheer ineptitude of the decisions made.

Councillor Ralph Berry (Lab, Wibsey), Cabinet member for Children, Leyburn Grove, Shipley