What happened to cafe culture?

The Java Cafe nearby, which offered a range of refreshments from morning until late at night, seven days a week, was a departure from conventional coffee bars and was flourishing. There were newspapers and books to read and an aroma of coffee beans, wine and spices that recalled the cafe-bars of Europe.

More than just an eating and drinking place, it was also a meeting place, particularly for students, theatre people and those from Bradford’s arts scene.

In the mid-1990s the bottom of Great Horton Road, between the Alhambra and the Odeon was regarded as a potential hub for a modern city-centre cafe culture. Bradford Council’s then city centre manager, Richard Willoughby, spoke of the possibility of turning the area into a pedestrianised arcade, sheltered from the worst of the westerly winds and cloudbursts.

What has happened to that dream?

Bradford-based writer Michael Stewart, who was a regular at the Java Cafe and the Love Apple Cafe, said the social-cultural hub that used to buzz in that part of Bradford had its best days when the venues were both flourishing.

He says: “The rot set in when the Java closed down in 1999 and the opening of cheap drinking places round about. Over the past two years the Love Apple was used for bass-line nights, aggressive young people getting off their heads. It didn’t fit in with the ethos of the place.”

Bradford Council’s new political head of regeneration, Councillor Dave Green, in his first major interview since last month’s district council elections, also has a few candid answers to the question of what happened to Bradford’s cafe-culture dream.

He says: “That quarter of the city has not developed as the Council would have hoped, as I would have hoped; but the same could be said of large chunks of the city centre.

“Over the past ten years, the Council has withdrawn from the day-to-day management and support of the city centre that had previously been offered.

“The establishment of Bradford Centre Regeneration meant that the Council focused on longer-term strategic planning, and that was at the expense of the here and now.

“City centre management was pulled to support the more strategic approach. Then there was the withdrawal of city centre wardens. A lot of retailers seriously missed that day-to-day contact with the Council.

“This is something we are going to try to reintroduce and get the balance right between long-term strategic developments, such as the City Park and Westfield, and working with the small businesses we have got and the ones we want to attract.”

Councillor Green believes the creation of BCR had the effect of sub-contracting out the marketing of Bradford, emphasising the big multi-million pound schemes to the detriment of areas such as lower Great Horton Road, parts of Sunbridge Road, City Road and Thornton Road.

He says: “I am not going into the recent murders, but, having taken them out of the equation, the image of Bradford is not a positive one and has been allowed to slip.

“The City of Film accolade should be used more. It needs to be worked on to encourage inward investment. We have to get our product right. We are looking at the art of the possible, whether we can deliver, rather than come up with artists’ impressions.”

The word ‘delivery’ is council-ese for making real things happen. Too late for the Java – now just a cleared, fenced-off site – and the Love Apple, but not too late for other entrepreneurs who may be inspired or motivated when the Southgate building opens for business.

“One of the things we have to do is make people feel the city centre is a happy and safe place to visit,” says Coun Green. “Small businesses are our building blocks. We can do more to help people who are struggling. A lot might depend on the Budget on June 22.

“We have some plans coming forward that will at least start that process,” he adds.