A leading community activist and regeneration worker was today unveiled as chairman of the organisation which owns one of the district's most successful business centres.

Action for Business (Bradford) (ABL), which last year purchased the Carlisle Business Centre in Manningham, has announced the appointment of Shaukat Ahmed.

Mr Ahmed, a former councillor who is a senior project manager for Leeds City Council, takes over from Gwyn Jones.

Today ABL chief executive Gurdev Dahele paid tribute to Mr Jones's contribution, particularly his part in helping transform Carlisle Mills into a thriving business centre.

Mr Jones played a key role in buying the centre from Bradford Council and it is now one of the district's most successful, providing a base for more than 50 businesses and voluntary organisations.

More than 40,000 delegates and visitors use its facilities every year, with ABL also organising seminars, exhibitions, conferences and job fairs.

"He has been absolutely fantastic for us," Mr Dahele said today. "With his experience in project management, he has been instrumental in building the capacity of ABL to become an asset-based organisation and without his help it wouldn't have been possible to acquire the centre. It was not just his efforts in the negotiations, but also in identifying sources of funding."

Mr Dahele said the success of the centre in attracting businesses had helped transform Manningham's fortunes.

"We are very pleased with how it has gone," he said. "At the initial stage, a lot of people said this concept would not work and that people wouldn't come here, but we have proved everyone wrong. The Carlisle Business centre has become the focal point of community activities and people are also coming in from outside Manningham, to what was once seen as a no-go area to some."

He was confident the success would continue with Mr Ahmed as chairman.

ABL has ambitions to bring boarded-up buildings in Manningham back into use. "As a result of the Carlisle Business Centre development many shops and other businesses which were literally about to close down have seen the improved environment and trade has begun to pick up again," he said.

"We are now full up so we are always looking for new space if we can find it."