Many will rightly be intrigued and excited by the third major phase of the regeneration proposals for Bradford exclusively revealed in today's Telegraph & Argus. The dynamic proposals for the Valley section of the regeneration masterplan hopefully will finally convey the message to the sceptics that a truly enterprising and practical reality is set to emerge from Will Alsop's vision for the future of the city centre.

Whatever anyone might think of Mr Alsop and his work, his key role is to open the minds of those responsible for regenerating city centres in the hope that once the detailed planning process has begun, a pragmatic and achievable programme for injecting new life into urban areas will emerge.

No-one in their right minds, including Will Alsop himself, would ever have expected Bradford centre to one day look exactly like the colourful and sometimes wacky vision he created as a basis for action. What his vivid imagination conjured up is a spark for the people who live and work in the city to develop into more interesting and exciting ways of making the centre a better place to be in the future.

Few thinking people ever imagined that key prime development space along Thornton Road would ever be filled with wetland marshes or that the Odeon would be replaced with giant glass mushrooms and roller-skating pathways.

But out of that flamboyant vision has emerged some forward-looking, achievable proposals which have the potential to completely transform a key part of the city centre which has until now been allowed to develop in a piecemeal and unco-ordinated way.