Licence will allow Top of Town to host numerous City of Culture events

A Licensing Panel granted a licence that would allow events such as beer festivals and family fun days to be held on North Parade and Oastler Square during Bradford’s 2025 City of Culture year.

And members were told there would be a “handful” of events in the run up to the celebration.

Bradford Council had applied for a licence to host entertainment and serve drinks in the Top of Town area from 9am to midnight. Officers had since rolled back that request, saying they were happy for the licence to run until 11pm.

There had been an objection to the application signed by two residents and saying the licence would cause noise nuisance for city centre residents. Neither objector attended the meeting on Tuesday.

North Parade is currently undergoing a National Lottery funded refurbishment that will create new, wider pavements, tree planting and retractable bollards that can be used to block the street to traffic.

Neighbouring Oastler Square is being transformed into a pocket park, with plants and grass being added to the ex-concrete square around the statue of Richard Oastler this week. The Grade II listed statue will be cleaned.

Work to create the pocket park on Oastler Square (Image: newsquest)

Work is expected to be completed next month.

Emily Spencer, Events Manager at Bradford Council, told the panel: “This licence will be part of the tools we can utilise to deliver a robust and varied programme of events for the 2025 City of Culture and support the opportunities that come in the future from the anticipated success of the year’s programme.

“There are also intentions to host a high standard of events prior to the year of culture and whilst those locations and plans aren’t finalised yet having the tools and licences in place to do this smoothly is in the interest of the North Parade area and it’s economic growth.”

Chair of the Panel Councillor Malcolm Slater (Lab, Keighley East) said: “You’re planning for City of Culture of course, and it needs a lot of forward planning, but at the moment that is about two years away. Are there likely to be many events before then?”

Mrs Spencer said: “We would hope so, there will probably be a handful of events on North Parade before then, but we will certainly have capacity to hold a lot more events there than we do now.

“The space is being refreshed and renewed – it is much more useable space, especially the space behind North Parade where we plan to put a lot more events on.

“We need to be ready for what’s to come.”

She said there was no plan to fence off the area during events, but there would be security at the entrances.

There would be “zero tolerance” for any poor behaviour.

Councillor Geoff Winnard (Cons, Bingley) asked if the licence would allow the existing business on North Parade to go beyond their current licences.

Mrs Spencer said the businesses would be able to run pop up bars on the street, but that other bars or food stalls could be brought in to “amplify” the offer.

She added: “When we hold events it will bring footfall to North Parade – whether people spend all their money in the local bars or some of their money, it is all beneficial. We want more people there so we can shop them what North Parade has to offer.”

When asked about the requested hours – from 9am, she said that time related to starting events and entertainment, she said they would not serve alcohol that early in the morning.

She said the licence would need to be until at least 11pm, adding: “We’re trying to boost the evening economy – if we have an event like a beer festival that has to shut at 10pm it would look a bit sad.”

The panel asked if there would be any likely charge for events. Mrs Spencer said: “I can’t anticipate we’d hold an event there that was ticketed – we certainly don’t have any plans to do so.”

Members approved the licence, but with the slightly reduced hours of 10am to 11pm.