CRITICS say "questions need to be asked" after a huge fire broke out at an old go-kart site on Upper Castle Street, East Bowling, early this morning.

Crews from a number of fire stations across Bradford and further afield remained in attendance at the scene tonight and are expected to be there for days.

The Environment Agency confirmed in July that it had begun a probe into the operators of a site on Spring Mill Street off Manchester Road.

At the time, a spokesperson for the Environment Agency said: “Our officers are investigating the operators of this site following reports to our Incident Hotline about the suspected illegal storage of waste tyres.

"There are strict rules governing the storage of waste tyres, which are designed to help prevent fires and to protect people and the environment."

Today, the EA said: “We have responded to an incident of a fire on Spring Mill Street in Bradford and are on site supporting the fire service as part of a multi-agency response to minimise risk to the local community and the environment.

“Our officers are investigating the operators of this site following reports to our Incident Hotline about the suspected illegal storage of waste tyres. There are strict rules governing the storage of waste tyres, which are designed to help prevent fires and to protect people and the environment.”

Tonight, Councillor Talat Sajawal (Ind, Little Horton) said: "We definitely need to know what the investigation reveals.

"It would be interesting to know if anything could have been done earlier.

"There are questions to be asked as to why weren't any of these concerns not escalated.

"Why were there such a large number of tyres disposed of in this space and who is managing the enforcement action in this pipeline?

Cllr Sajawal, who went down to deliver sandwiches to the firefighters, said: "They'll be fighting this fire throughout the night and trying to dampen it down as much as they can.

Cllr Fareeda Mir (Lab, Little Horton) added: "It's shouldn't have happened but I don't know all the ins and outs of the investigation.

"The fire service and other agencies are all working together towards getting the fire under control.

"The lucky thing is it appears that the wind is not blowing towards the residential part of the area.

"We'll know more once the services do their job."

In July, pictures taken by the Telegraph & Argus showed large mounds of bundled tyres as well as piles of loose tyres.

One person, who lives nearby and had contacted the Environment Agency over the tyres on the site before, said: “This was predicted to happen with the amount of tyres - nobody took it seriously.”

She added that these concerns were raised months ago and she couldn’t understand why it had taken so long.