It is welcome news indeed that Lord Rogers, one of Britain's most esteemed architects, has been brought in to advise Bradford Council on the selection of its consultants for its vision for the future of the city centre.

Lord Rogers has built an enviable reputation for the quality of his architectural design, and although not everyone wholly approves of everything he has produced, he has a breadth of vision and an eye for scale and detail which have been sadly lacking in Bradford planning for many years.

For too long Bradford has been embarrassingly grateful to accept almost any development scheme that has come its way for vacant plots, irrespective of its architectural merits - the planned replacement for Provincial House being a case in point.

In the best interests of regeneration, Bradford must move forward on two fronts. First, it must retain the best of its remaining historic architecture as represented by parts of the city centre, almost all of Little Germany, and historic industrial buildings like Lister's Mill.

In addition, it must show that it is prepared to move onwards and upwards by rejecting the plain, the ordinary, the purely functional and the pastiches in favour of the sort of dynamic and exciting architecture which can offset that wealth of history and tradition and get the city talked about as a vibrant, thrusting place in which to live and work.

High-quality, interesting architecture is a symbol of the kind of outward-looking, upward-moving city that Bradford must seek to become.