Pity poor Bradford, a flattened city centre without prospect. It would be laughable if not a fact. Where are we being led?

The St Peter's House debacle, Forster Square pyramids, a useless canal with too many locks and two dead-end railway stations.

A Northgate footbridge spanning the only ring road with a T-junction and another proposed £3m replacement bridge over a one-way dedicated bus lane, built in competition with Leeds, in Manchester Road, which should have lead to Superdome. The now-£30m Park at the Heart mirror pool which will drain and change size to accommodate 10,000 for a concert when Bradford Festival has been cancelled.

It will be surrounded by a feature memorial gallery, prayer area, quality bus shelters, fountains and geysers bordered by a meandering but contaminated beck.

Obscuring the Alhambra all will be overlooked by rented college space, offices, apartments and another hotel within New Victoria Place after demolition of our much-loved Odeon.

More public money will then be spent extending St. George's Hall into a much-needed concert venue'. The half of one per cent of the population who voted in favour claimed as overwhelming support'.

Add an airport surely to lose our city's identification, a battery-powered shuttle bus unable to master hills, an empty £1m temporary market and inability to fund £350k to keep street wardens and one doubts if the ghost of Bradford still remains.

Few observers to city centre decline speak out, new boy Wilkinsons, surrounded by 3,000 sq ft to rent and just two traders alongside in the newly-built Rawson Market surpassed by just two of ten shops occupied in Rawson Place. Morrisons moving out, T J Hughes downsizing and Oxfam like many others quietly moving on.

Our early 20th century councillors introduced more new ideas than any other local authority in the land. Let us now scrap the spin, stop fooling one another and be innovative again.

Rate-free periods would attract businesses and customers, even increase city living. Free safe parking should be provided underground beneath Forster Square. We already have the ramp!

A Council charm offensive with TLC would help people and businesses regenerate the city themselves. City living needs an infrastructure starting with a health centre.

The planners must be reined-in, they are invisibly damaging all our prospects. I have yet to hear praise from any developer.