SIR – It’s difficult to avoid being negative over the Westfield debacle, but perhaps it’s time for a radically positive approach.
Westfield’s bog-standard, concrete and glass shopping arcade would make Bradford no different from other places, so why should anyone come?
What we need is something different to draw in cash-rich visitors from far and wide – so here’s a plan.
Anyone who has visited Arabic nations will probably have enjoyed the experience of the souk – it’s that huge, aromatic, chaotic, noisy, bustling, labyrinthine market, in which traders and craftsmen ply their wares, haggling with customers, all to the accompaniment of the sounds and smells of the machinery, the food stalls and the cacophony of commerce. There are no rules, it’s every man for himself, and as pure an example of a real market-place as you can experience anywhere.
So why not build the Broadway Souk? Folk would come from miles around to sample, to haggle, to buy and to enjoy. Not a chain-store in sight, not a nanny Trading Standards rule anywhere, just buyers and sellers doing the business.
And with the new ‘cross-rail’ line running through it, what better model of a really authentic souk?
Graham Hoyle, Kirkbourne Grove, Baildon
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