YORKSHIRE people are said to be blessed with common sense; at least Yorkshire people think they are. So why do we seem to be governed by short-sighted, self-serving officials who appear to lack common sense?

Keighley has a rising and increasingly complex set of crime problems; so, the decision is made to finally close down the local police station in Royd Ings. This is a large building, expensive, located by someone on the outskirts of the town. It never worked effectively in terms of what it was designed to do. Its closure now is a tacit admission of a failure to deal adequately with this Keighley issue. Meanwhile, the crooks make hay while the cat is away.

On another issue, one of the great advantages of living in Keighley is that it still retains a healthy balance between urban and rural, so that it is a pleasure to look out of the window.

So, the decision is made, in Bradford, to build on acres of green fields for yet more houses and industrial buildings.

Local public opposition to such schemes seems to be consistently ignored (the incinerator at Marley for example).

Decisions are made on a regular basis in Bradford regarding the gloomy fate of one after another key sites in Keighley. The process for this that Bradford chooses to operate involves so little in terms of public consultation that it would be laughable if it weren’t close to criminal, at least in the wider sense of what Keighley will look like in the years to come.

Bradford’s publicity on any of these matters is really poor; generally obscure and confusing in terms of the reasoning; weak and insecure on facts, figures and realistic projections.

Personally, I am not sure that Keighley and Shipley’s proposed secession from Bradford Metropolitan Council would improve matters that much. We might be exchanging the aegis of one local “authority” for another of like mind.

To be frank, the recent track record of locally elected officials is not that encouraging. Our newly elected MP is still something of an untried and untested quantity.

My instinct is that in some areas of public service it may prove to be more expensive for Keighley to be independent of Bradford. However, I feel that this loss might be offset by the application of local solutions to local problems. Moreover the monitoring of the processes involved would take place here, not in Bradford.

There is absolutely no point in encouraging film companies to come here and perpetuate the truth of what this area used to be like while at the same time allowing that truth to be destroyed. That is how myths are made; in Bradford.

CHRISTOPHER ACKROYD Bethel Street East Morton