Bradford city centre will be a carnival of colour and music for the Lord Mayor’s Parade on Saturday.

More than 1,000 children will take part in the parade which will set off at 11am from the Crown Court Plaza and travel on a new route along Bridge Street, Sunbridge Road, Kirkgate and Market Street before arriving at Centenary Square, where performers will be on stage.

Among the other highlights of the event will be the reading of a specially commissioned poem written by Bradford’s Poet Laureate Gerard Benson in collaboration with a group of schoolchildren.

Environmentally-themed costumes will be a feature of the day, and the Schools Linking Network will put on Who Do We Think We Are? – an exploration of identity.

Joining the procession will be pupils from Green Lane Primary School, Manning-ham, who have been busy creating costumes for the event.

With the help of designer Jacquie Lambert, of Q20 Theatre in Shipley, 32 children in Years Three, Four and Six made costumes to tie in with this year’s theme – building bridges. The school based the designs on the Simon & Garfunkel song Bridge Over Troubled Water.

Lisa Artist, music teacher at Green Lane, supervised the workshop.

She said: “We chose the line ‘sail on silver bird’ from the song so the children made swan head-dresses and blue tabards to wear, and a river made from blue fabric and shiny material for them to hold on the day.

“They also made a bridge to go over the river from multi-coloured material.”

Even though the main event is still to come, the pupils had lots of fun just making the costumes. Mrs Artist said: “The children loved it. It allowed other year groups to collaborate and it was nice to have different ages and the older ones helping the younger ones.”

The Lord Mayor of Bradford, Councillor Howard Middleton, who will be leading the parade, said: “I am really looking forward to this weekend and taking part in what is always an amazing city centre event.

“I would encourage people to come into the city and enjoy sights of the parade.”

Councillor Anne Hawkes-worth, Bradford Council’s executive member for environment and culture, said: “The parade is always a vibrant and colourful event and is one of many across the city and district this summer for everyone to enjoy.”

Volunteers will be collecting for the Lord Mayor’s Appeal, which is the Bradford branch of the Alzheimer’s Society.