: Sat Feb 07, 2009 6:52 pm  

Asim wrote:

Yep, it may sound overly simplistic but if you can make the city centre somewhere people want to spend time then businesses to serve those people will naturally start to spring up.

Bradford will never have a big thriving commercial centre because there is one of them 9 miles away, it has to offer something different rather than simply try schemes to mimic which invariably fail.

you go to the best European cities, and the biggest draw isn't shops. Now BFD is never going to be a European city of choice, but its not too much to ask to make it a place where local people like to spend time. Come on councillers, put a bit of gray matter behind it, do some research (not the type where you ask representative sample - they'll just ask for a faster horse).

: Sat Feb 28, 2009 11:51 am  

Look who's in charge of the LGA... wonder if she's referring to anywhere in particular? Link

Look who's in charge of the LGA... wonder if she's referring to anywhere in particular? Link

: Sat Feb 28, 2009 11:59 am  

Who better to head such an association than someone from one of the best local authorities there is? By the way todays T&A has finally decided to cover the story everyone else has known for years.

Who better to head such an association than someone from one of the best local authorities there is? By the way todays T&A has finally decided to cover the story everyone else has known for years.

: Sat Feb 28, 2009 12:30 pm  

Did the T&A ever have any balls? They should be raging about this.

: Thu Mar 05, 2009 6:37 am  

Broadway ‘best for new shops’ Yeah, that's the big story - 'Can we build a stadium there?'

Broadway ‘best for new shops’ Yeah, that's the big story - 'Can we build a stadium there?'

: Thu Mar 05, 2009 6:55 am  

af wrote:

Did the T&A ever have any balls?

Don't be silly. I've never known it be anything other than the council newsletter. The thread on generic Bulls stories applies to every aspect of the T&A's business, it's not just Bulls access they'll bend over to get.

: Thu Mar 05, 2009 7:51 am  

Eaton & decisive action in the same sentence
I walked from Forster Square station to the FC on Tuseday at 6.30pm. I passed one person on the whole mile walk. I counted less than 10 people looking all round the city centre. Not one cafe did I notice was open, one empty 'curry' house (I use the term loosely - it was the former Commonwealth) & no pubs. Apart from Pictureville I can't think of a reson to visit the centre of Bradford.

: Thu Mar 05, 2009 8:52 am  

This is SO depressing.

I left Bradford in 1980 to get work.

Since that time I've seen from a distance Bradford's decline and Leeds rise as the dominant city in the region.

For the past 12 years I've lived near Liverpool. It's renaissance culminating in the "Capital of Culture" year last year has been incredible and something that Bradford's Council should note.

The "Liverpool One" retail development could so easily have been a similar hole in the ground but as it is it has been an outstanding success - attracting many visitors/shoppers back to Liverpool city centre... what did Liverpool do right and Bradford do SO wrong??

: Thu Mar 05, 2009 9:12 am  

The city has been such a mess for so long that most people have found viable alternatives to Bradford, and even when/if the new shopping centre is built I can't see those people coming back to the city centre.

I live in Thackley and its actually not that much more difficult to get to Leeds City Centre than it is to get to Bradford City Centre. I can be in Leeds in less than 15 mins (train), less than 30mins (bus) and less than 20mins (car)... thats pretty comparabale with the time to get to Bradford with the added advantage of actually not having to go to Bradford!! Hence I chose to work/socialise/shop in Leeds.

: Thu Mar 05, 2009 11:51 am  

You get the clear impression that for decades, the Council has simply not employed people who are up to the job of moving a City into the 21c. The Odsal debacles are just one example, if a prominent one, of that.

Sure we have a recession now, but is there anywhere else in the world where the local authority would get away with flattening half the city centre and then leaving it like that for a decade, which it looks like being?

That they have pretty much got away with it probably illustrates that most of the ground-down residents don't actually give a fsck any more and prefer to simply shake their heads with a wry grin, as I do.