BRADFORDIANS have waited an awful long time for work to start on the dilapidated Odeon building in the city centre.

The 1930s building, next to the Alhambra Theatre and overlooking City Park, has been vacant since it closed in 2000. For a while it looked as though the iconic picture palace - once one of the grandest cinemas in Europe - would be lost forever.

But in the best traditional of a Hollywood cliff-hanging serial, the Odeon was saved from the bulldozers when an 11th-hour deal was struck with the NEC.

Construction work to convert the Odeon into a music venue is due to get underway in September.

This includes stripping out what remains of the 1960s-era cinema that was left behind when the Odeon closed its doors and the construction of a new rear-of-stage door.

The next milestone will be a planning application, due to be submitted to Bradford Council in the Autumn, with the main construction works to scheduled to begin in Summer 2019.

The plan is to re-instate the original huge auditorium, creating the biggest ‘mid-size’ venue in the country outside London, with a capacity of 3500 seated/ 4000 with stalls standing.The credit for this goes to Bradford Live, the not-for-profit charitable company formed in 2012 to find a long-term use for the building.

They brought NEC Group into the project and secured £4m from the Northern Cultural Regeneration Fund to make it happen. The city owes them a big debt of gratitude.