The outgoing diocesan Bishop of Bradford was talking about creativity and confidence, how the people of the district needed to see evidence of positive physical change to help them overcome preconceptions, a lingering sense of victimhood.

The Right Reverend Nick Baines gestured to the spouting fountains of City Park, through the big picture windows of Forsters restaurant and cafe-bar.

He recalled how, when he posted a picture of the park on Twitter, somebody had dismissively referred to it as a “£23m patio with a water feature”.

“I went back and said there were 500 to 600 people here when the picture was taken. People pass through here all the time,” he said.

“Before I came here in 2011, I looked at the stats – there was a 20 per cent reduction in footfall. It’s very difficult to put that back. But you’re not going to get retail outlets coming until you’ve got people coming in.”

This story is indicative of the change that the Bishop intends to encourage when on June 8 he takes up his new post of Bishop of West Yorkshire and the Dales, the enlarged Church of England dioceses that will include Bradford, Huddersfield and Wakefield and Leeds and Ripon.

On February 19, Bradford Council’s chief executive Tony Reeves also referred to City Park as a measure of a new sense of civic pride among the young that he was keen to foster.

He said: “City Park has won nine or ten national or international awards. None of that matters, frankly. But when you go to schools and see paintings of City Park, you know we have done something that has made them proud. It’s about getting people to respond positively to that place.”

Easy enough, you may say, for clever, articulate men such as Mr Reeves and the Bishop to talk up the district; doesn’t everybody in public office do that?

The trick is to make a difference, and after his three enthronements at Wakefield, Ripon and Bradford in July, the Right Reverend Baines will be ensconced with his wife Linda in their new home in Leeds – far removed, you may say, from the pressures shaping Bradford.

Irrespective of his address, his expectations of his new diocesan team of area bishops will set the pace for the changes that he wants.

“At any time of change, people want to know where the solid ground is, and that’s usually in the past. Life is always fragile; the latest crisis is never the final word. The world is always changing,” he said.

“On April 12 there will be a celebration of the Bradford diocese at the Cathedral. There’s not a lot of stomach for a funeral for the diocese. The appetite in the church is to move on and make it happen,” he added.

Make what happen, though? Active involvement in the life of the district at all levels: business, culture, schools, colleges and Bradford University. This also means evangelism of a sort, not selling a product or a message, but encouraging people to see that the church is there with them, wherever they happen to be, whatever their circumstances.

It’s not a case of competition, of Manningham trying to be like Ilkley, for instance; even the churches in Ilkley differ from one another, he explained.

Bishop Baines has often said the art of communication consists in how something is heard, not just what is said. Altering the language of how communities talk to one another is not about being proscriptive, but having confidence to speak frankly and be heard fairly.

“Language is a victim of decline. It’s very hard to break out of that. The shift that I see from when I came here three years ago is that people are able to confront reality – the good and the bad – in their public discourse,” he said.

Whoever Bishop Baines appoints as the Area Bishop of Bradford, he or she will be encouraged to be brave and creative and to see one culture through the lens of another – the Bishop’s favourite image for understanding.

“If you have to hide from things, there is not the impetus to change. If you define yourself as a victim, it’s not your responsibility to do anything about it,” he said.

“When I came here politicians said: ‘We don’t need people coming in from outside to tell us about Bradford’. I thought at the time, ‘That’s exactly what you need!’”