File photo of someone using a laptop THE pandemic is having a “considerable impact” on the risk to vulnerable people of extremist groups. A new report into the Prevent strategy in Bradford says long periods of isolation, more time spent online and a lack of interaction with teachers and other services is increasing the chances that vulnerable people in the District might be targeted by extremist groups. Each year Bradford Council’s Corporate Scrutiny Committee is given an update on the Prevent scheme - a national programme to reduce the risk of people being radicalised by extremist groups - in the Bradford District.
“Individuals can be very vulnerable to the on-line narrative.” Members will also be given a report by the Commission for Countering Extremism looking at conspiracy theories involving the pandemic. It was written last Summer, following the first National lockdown, but many of the issued raised in the document have remained almost a year into the pandemic. It says: “During the Covid-19 pandemic we have seen an increased visibility of conspiracy theories ranging from anti-vaccine, anti-establishment to anti-minority and antisemitic. “They are not specific to any one ideology, but are used by the Far Right, Far Left and Islamists to further their own ideological aims.”
The Household Waste Recycling Centre at Bowling Back Lane
BRADFORD Council will begin replacing its fleet of large diesel vehicles with greener gas powered vehicles in 2021 - Councillors have been told. While much of the Council s fleet is likely to switch from petrol to electric in the coming years, larger vehicles will soon be powered by compressed gas. And at the most recent meeting of Bradford Council s Corporate Scrutiny Committee members were told that it was hoped that these gas powered vehicles would arrive in Bradford in late 2021. The Committee was discussing plans to create a new advanced fuel centre at the Council s Bowling Back Lane waste site. The site would tap into the existing gas network to create a fuelling station for the new green vehicle fleet.