Fed up with waiting for regeneration

From: Pat Rhodes, Allerton, Bradford.

With reference to Keith Nunn’s letter (Yorkshire Post, April 20). As a Bradfordian, I am glad Mr Nunn enjoyed his visit to Bradford.

I was also comforted to know he wasn’t worried about the lack of shops – as he lives in Farsley and is only a short distance to the wonderful shopping opportunity in Leeds, it is not surprising.

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However, the people of Bradford are fed up with the long- awaited promises of regeneration which have been going on for years. Mr Nunn patronisingly refers to downtrodden and fed up locals. I don’t consider myself to be downtrodden – but agree I am fed up.

I do however, consider myself to be “let down” by the now defunct City Centre Regeneration Company under the leadership of Maud Marshall and by those elected members and council officers who were unable to secure a tight-enough contract over the Westfield development. The consequence of this is that many of our shops were bulldozed and we were left with an embarrassing hole. This has now been filled in and we are left with a great mass of grass.

Yes, Mr Nunn, rebirth is just waiting to happen... and we have plenty of good ideas – it doesn’t need an outsider to tell us what they are.

One good idea was to regenerate our Odeon building which would have been a great compliment to our wonderful Alhambra theatre. Many good ideas were put forward for its use and an organisation set up to try and save it. However, it was purchased by Yorkshire Forward who now, according to latest government spending cuts, will have to sell this on the open market.

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Mr Nunn is right – rebirth is just waiting to happen. Unfortunately there is no money to do this.

Mr Nunn will be happy to know that his hope that Centenary Square will be transformed into a green and pleasant central space will come true as we are to have a lake.

It is to be hoped there will be enough money in the pot to do something with the face of the half demolished police station to make it look presentable and let’s hope when Mr Nunn visits Bradford again that the lake will at least have some water in it.

Widening access

From: Coun Howard Middleton, Bolton and Undercliffe Ward, Bradford Council.

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FOLLOWING the debate about access to Oxford University, it appears that the position of state school pupils has gone backwards over the past 30 years.

I won a place at Corpus Christi College Oxford to study history from 1979-1982. I attended a state school in Huddersfield and was, with my younger brothers, on free school meals.

There were 64 students starting at Corpus Christi in September 1979, roughly half from state schools and including one female student from a British Afro-Caribbean background.

Admission was by competitive Oxford University entrance exam which I took in the November when I was 17 before taking my A-levels the following June. This was the admissions route available then to bright pupils from state schools, but this no longer exists. Admission is now by A-level results and interview.

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Many more students in 2011 are applying with four A* grades at A-level so the interview and candidates’ presentation skills become crucially important.

Now Oxford University is faced with having to differentiate between pupils with similar academic results, I believe it must consider re-introducing an entrance examination as one means of widening access.

From: David Cook, Parkside Close, Cottingham.

I WAS surprised to see the so-called experts offering guidance regarding student tuition fees all missed the most obvious and important advice that could be given to anyone. That is at all costs, do not marry a fellow graduate with a similar debt.

This could easily see a young couple starting married life owing £70,000 and rising in line with inflation.

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Politicians of all parties need to think very carefully of the positive harm they are doing to the great bulk of middle-class families.

GP system is working

From: Dr Laurence Buckman, British Medical Association, London.

Regarding the story “GP bonus scheme ‘failing to improve health’” (Yorkshire Post, April 21), the King’s Fund report was talking about preventative public health measures, which the Quality And Outcomes Framework (QOF) was never designed to cover and which have always been part of the work we do outside of this element of the GP contract.

The QOF was designed to pay GPs for high quality work they had already been doing unfunded – and to allow them to employ the staff this needed; to ensure that care was always evidence-based and uniformly provided across the country; and, crucially, to make sure there was structured care for patients with long-term conditions, helping them to manage their conditions so people with diabetes and asthma, for example, didn’t end up needing hospital treatment.

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There is published evidence to prove that the QOF is doing just that. Furthermore, over the long term, we expect the true gains to be shown more clearly as the evidence base develops.

To call it a “failure” is to dismiss the improvement it has made to the lives of many thousands of patients.