The revised first phase of the £45m Aspire Citygate, set to go before councillors next week, offers a reasonable model for city living that it would be good to see many others follow.

Developers Skelwith have taken on board suggestions from Bradford Council and have now come up with proposals that are being recommended for approval by councillors next week.

That has mainly involved replacing the predominantly one-bedroom and studio apartments from the original plan to offer a more balanced number of one- and two-bedroomed apartments.

With Bradford Council saying that the district needs 45,000 new homes over the next 15 years or so, it is absolutely vital any new developments do all they can to help address that demand.

Although the 700 homes that will make up this development in total are only a small fraction of that, it is important, as this paper’s Save Our Green Spaces campaign highlights, that as many of those homes as possible are built in urban areas, particularly those parts of our city which are currently derelict.

We would also suggest that the demand has been vastly overstated, but that is a debate for another time.

At the moment, the Council and developers seem to be all too willing to pave over the precious green spaces in and around the Bradford district to address this perceived demand.

That is a travesty when the huge amount of derelict mills, factories, schools, houses, shops and other buildings in Bradford and its surrounding towns is considered. Which is why we would commend the compromises made by Skelwith which should allow the Council to approve the first stage of this development at a planning committee next week.

Let us hope this is an example which other developers look at and then consider some of the many urban sites ripe for development.