Today's announcement that Bradford Council is planning to establish a new company to head up the regeneration of the city centre is the single best piece of news the district has had for many long years.

It has taken literally decades to get there but at last our civic leaders have grasped the fact that regeneration is something which must be driven and cannot simply be expected to happen if you wait long enough. Neither is it something a local authority, hidebound by petty politics, can undertake on its own if it hopes to win the confidence of businesses, developers and investors.

For many years Bradford has jealously watched the progress of its neighbour Leeds as it set out with a will to make itself the financial capital of the north with the consequent boom in its fortunes. What our Council failed to realise was that much of Leeds's success was due to the efforts of the city's Development Corporation which set out to make the changes happen.

Bradford has always needed a similar organisation to attract funding, to set up partnerships, to facilitate development and to make the area attractive for investors and companies wanting to move here.

The Urban Regeneration Company will be a one-stop shop for change. It will do away with all those speculative, pie-in-the-sky schemes that never seem to get off the ground in Bradford - because it will be able to deliver start-up funding and a detailed brief of what's expected from developers.

Above all, it will make things happen - and Bradford is long overdue for that.