Monday, April 1, 1974, was the day the municipal boundaries of Bradford changed. On the last day of March the population was 293,000, but on April Fool’s Day it shot up to 462,000.

The enlarged borders to the south, north and especially west, encompassed Queensbury, Shelf, Denholme, Silsden, Bingley, Shipley, Baildon as well as Keighley Borough Council – areas dominated by Conservative voters.

There were 31 wards each represented by three councillors. The Wharfe and Aire valleys were rammed together under the new regime of municipal reform.

The problem of identity, which was to afflict Bradford gravely in the 1990s, had its genesis in the creation of metropolitan district and county councils, a two-tier structure created by the Conservative Government of Edward Heath and partly dismantled 12 years later in 1986 by Margaret Thatcher.

The dawning of the great day was not welcomed by a ceremonial salute of gunfire, however, but by a warning shot across the bows of the new organisation, fired by Conservative councillor Tom Hall, the first Lord Mayor of the new authority.

He told the assembled 93 councillors in the Council chamber (later pruned to 90): “It is for you to decide the shape of local government to come and to guard zealously against further infringements of its freedoms to remain local.

“This you promised to do, if elected. If you now fail to redeem that promise, my forecast is that local government will cease to exist.”

The blueprint for modern Bradford was flawed from the start, according to Bradford Council’s chief executive Gordon Moore. He described it as a “monumental blunder” which had misled people.

“Bradford was an all-purpose authority. It operated its own transport undertaking. It was its own planning authority. It had water. It had sizeable health functions. It was its own police and fire authority. It was its own weights and measures authority. It had all these functions and probably some others I’ve forgotten. The biggest problem within Bradford Met has been the size of the operation. It is bound to appear impersonal compared with the authorities which went out of existence on April 1, 1974.

“Bradford could not be run as Denholme Urban Distrcit Council was run, or Queensbury, or Shelf or Baildon, which were small and personal.

“I would accept that Bradford Met is not the most popular or beloved organisation. I live with that. It’s important to remember that not one of the 11 constituent authorities that were amalgamated to become Bradford Met wanted the reorganisation as it came, and that included the old Bradford City.”

Thirty-nine years ago, City Hall’s job was to provide services, from keeping streets clean to educating the young and looking after those unable to look after themselves.

In the 1980s into the 1990s, against the backdrop of political opposition to central government spending cuts, a moral dimension was added by introducing policies to combat racism and inequality.

But in the past five or six years, in the aftermath of the credit crunch, with central government again cutting grants, local government is swinging back to the provision of basic services.