The city centre's cocktail of hope

Cities and the people who live and work in them are not static entities. Both are dynamic, they change all the time although the pace of change varies.

Market forces determine what goods are sold where, which partly explains why shops and stores come and go. Employment, of course, is the other important factor. But are city centres merely places to work and shop?

The past decade or more has seen an intense debate on this subject. In the coming months, an extensive survey of shopping trends in 20 West Yorkshire town and city centres will hopefully carry the debate forward, making local politicians from Leeds to Calderdale think hard about the shape and substance of central Bradford, Leeds, Halifax, Huddersfield, Wakefield as well as places like Ilkley, Shipley, and Keighley.

Nearly five years ago, the T&A carried out a rough-and-ready survey of central Bradford to log and collate what was going on. We toured 28 city centre thoroughfares and markets noting the number of shops that were closed, the number of bargain shops in operation.

Closures totalled 105, including 22 market stalls. We counted at least 57 bargain shops.

Ray Staniland, Bradford Council's assistant director of property services, admitted that the situation was the worst he had ever known. He blamed the growing trend of out-of-town shopping, those suburban oases of megastores surrounded by deserts of free car-parking. Others thought rents were prohibitively high.

Earlier this week I spent three hours or so going back over the same 28 locations to see what had happened in the past five years. I noted up to 89 closed shops, 27 fewer bargain shops, a good deal of vacant office space (especially in the Piccadilly/Manor Row area), but up to 34 new enterprises.

Rawson Market, selling fish, meat and vegetables, had 13 closed stalls in 1993. That market has been entirely demolished. Its smaller replacement in Infirmary Street seemed relatively full the morning I walked round. I say "seemed" because some stalls were not operating, and I put this down to it being a half-closing day. This was also the case in Bradford's three other markets.

In 1995 at least five units in the Kirkgate Centre were vacant. I didn't spot any this time. Five years ago Cheapside was a scene of ugly desolation, the windows of its seven empty shops matted with layers of posters. Only two shops are vacant now. New developments include the Mirages nightclub, Fatty Arbuckles, and the Bella Pasta.

Neighbouring Petergate, which runs into Forster Square, has got worse. However, this area is bound to pick up when St Peter's House becomes the spectacular Heritage Centre. Councillor Dave Green, chairman of Bradford Council's regeneration committee, said last year that much of the 1960s architecture in the area may not survive long after current leases run out.

The 34 new developments I counted perhaps give the biggest clue about the future shape of the city centre. They include a dozen new nightclubs and bars, eight restaurants and eateries, and seven amusement arcades.

The number of new bars and cafes is actually higher, but my route did not include the swathe of student territory between Little Horton Lane and Great Horton Road in which can be found The Blob Shop, The Java, and The Love Apple Caf. Nor did my route include the new multi-million pound retail outlets between Valley Road and Forster Square.

Many of the new cafes/bars and restaurants, such as Edwards in Ivegate, City Vaults in Hustlergate, and Pierre Victoire in Market Street, are good-quality joints. Unlike five years ago, Bradford now has the semblance of a caf culture to complement its proliferation of pubs. The routes between them have been handsomely pedestrianised.

Bradford seems to have abandoned the old notion that shopping alone will save the city centre. Several long conversations with Coun Green over the past few months have revealed a shift towards commerce and culture on the part of those in City Hall responsible for regeneration.

"The whole thing about city centres used to be a one-club approach: if you didn't have shops you didn't have a city centre. Now we are looking to the city centre to be a hub of activity outside shopping hours, a place that changes its character after five o'clock," he said.

"The huge increase in leisure and entertainment has not downgraded the importance of retail; it's due to a recognition that retail alone does not make a city centre.

"I was talking to the manager of a large shop in Bradford and he said it was great to see the night-life in Bradford now. He said it suggested to him that he might need to review his own opening hours, perhaps stay open later.

"One of the reasons we were losing out to Leeds was because people were saying Bradford had nowhere to go for a night out. We are slowly clawing that back," he added.

The culture part of the equation includes transforming old warehouses and offices into apartments. Five years ago this was not apparent. Now the Netherwood Building on Manor Row has flats on offer for under £30,000. A similar conversion scheme for the enormous Broadgate House block (near Cloud Nine) has been on the cards for two or three years.

The more people who live, not just work, in the city centre, the greater the possibility of generating demand for goods and services in the future, which in turn should help stimulate existing trade. Coun Green's view is that getting people back to live in the city centre is vital to Bradford's regeneration strategy.

Between now and the end of the century, 40-odd projects worth more than £276m are due to impact upon central Bradford. The huge extension to the National Museum of Photography, Film and Television, for example, is one; the hoped-for £40m multi-screen cinema complex in Vicar Lane is another. Bradford is conscious of the need for places to go, not just places to shop.

Five years ago, out-of-town shopping complexes looked like seeing off Bradford city centre. Now, in spite of occasional spats about car parking, the city centre is making a come-back due to diversification into leisure and cultural activities.

The process of revitalising city centres is likely to be aided by the Labour Government's prejudice against planning permission being granted for more vast out-of-town shopping developments. The Government looks with favour on what are called brown-site developments - transforming derelict urban centres, regenerating old buildings.

"That's a vital issue. I would certainly hope that the White Rose development (at Morley) is the last out-of-town shopping centre we see around here," said Coun Green.

"The problem we have in Bradford is that retail units that were built in the 1950s and 1960s were suitable for then, but not for now."

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.