This is one of the impressive new public squares to be created at the heart of Bradford's new £200 million shopping development.

Kirkgate Square, just off Cheapside, will allow people the chance to meander in comfort through the shops.

The city centre complex will also offer a creche, quiet room and wider-than-normal parking spaces.

People will be able to spill out of the shops into three public squares in total, pedestrians will be able to shop safely in car-free areas and access for vehicles servicing shops will be underground.

There will also be security staff, a public address system and CCTV in the new Broadway shopping complex. Full details of the state-of-the art, people-friendly centre were unveiled for the first time at a special meeting of Bradford area planning panel in City Hall yesterday.

International architects Benoy, who have designed the £200 million scheme, stressed they had not tried to copy the imposing Victorian buildings surrounding the site. The new Debenham's department store will be in Well Street next to historic Little Germany and David Coyne, of Benoy, said recesses and other features had been included to break up the scale and mass of the new shop.

The architects said stone, terracotta, bronze and glass were the main materials to be used in the scheme which will replace dozens of stark 1960s buildings including in Petergate.

Mr Coyne said: "David Hockney uses colour, light and brightness and we thought we would bring in colour."

Planning panel member the Reverend Paul Flowers said: "A building which is purely functional is not wanted. We want colour and boldness."

Members of an independent panel of architects brought in by the Council to advise on the scheme also attended the meeting, which was held to try to speed up consideration of the planning application by the panel in January.

After the meeting, panel chairman Councillor Clive Richardson said: "The architects have tried to come up with a scheme which fits in with the existing building but does not try to duplicate it. There is individual detail which I might question but it has been a useful exercise."

The developers, the Forster Square Development Partnership, hope to bring in contractors next May to start demolishing the existing buildings. They expect the centre will be finished by 2005.