Few can deny that Bradford is getting its regeneration act together, especially in the city centre. The City Park and Mirror Pool is a joy and work is gathering pace on the Westfield shopping centre at the heart of the town.

Many things come together to create a successful city centre. Retail is a major one, of course, as are places to eat and enjoy a drink. A major piece in the puzzle is arts and entertainment, and Bradford is fortunate to be blessed with two major theatres as well as a host of smaller ventures, venues and organisations delivering diversions for the population.

Arts and entertainments spending, where not absorbed by the private sector, is often cause for much debate as local authorities try to balance their budgets. So a lifeline can be thrown by groups such as the Arts Council England, which can provide much needed cash to boost the arts.

Bradford, however, seems very much to be getting the short straw when it comes to Arts Council funding. It emerges today that the district gets as little as £10 per head of population from the Arts Council.

This is woefully behind other districts – neighbouring Leeds, for example, gets a whopping £110 per head, while Manchester, Liverpool and Newcastle get upwards of £80 a head.

As one of the largest metropolitan districts in the country, Bradford is getting short shrift from the Arts Council here, and this is something that needs addressing urgently.

Bradford Council is quite rightly taking the Arts Council to task over this, and it is to be hoped a better balance is achieved soon. We have as much right to access the arts as anyone else, and certainly don’t deserve to be victims of such huge discrepancies in funding.