SIR – Your report of an unapproved car-wash operating near Lister Park raises some questions about our local planners.

Do they travel around with their eyes closed? Surely some members of that bloated department pass along Manningham Lane and should have spotted the 'new' business trading there within days. Or do they totally switch off as soon as they leave the hallowed ground of City Hall?

I know if I had worked in that job and noticed any new activity on my ‘patch’, I would have dived into the office files immediately and checked it out.

But it appears that, were it not for the wish of the latest, and apparently honest, operator to formalise a name-change, this could have gone on completely unnoticed by our esteemed planners for ever more.

Why do we pay these people?

Graham Hoyle, Kirkbourne Grove, Baildon