Experts are set to create a new blueprint for the future of Bradford city centre.

Outside consultants are to be asked to set out a plan on how the city should develop over the next 25 years - to avoid it becoming a hotch-potch of different styles and developments.

The professional study on the appearance and economy of the city is expected to be one of the first tasks of Bradford's pioneering city centre company - a high-powered, non-profit making public/private partnership - which is set to put the plan out to tender to consultants.

The move follows a highly controversial decision to allow a bar and restaurant development on the prime Provincial House site.

And there are fears that if the police move out of their dilapidated Tyrls headquarters and the old Odeon cinema on Prince's Way is demolished, developers could produce their own vision of how the city should look.

The new study aims to create a strategy for the city to show investors exactly where it was heading.

Today the council's executive member for economy, Councillor Simon Cooke, said: "Subject to approval it would be one of the first remits of the new company which will be driving things forward."

And David Scougall, a director of the British Urban Regeneration Association, agreed it was vital.

"It is absolutely essential for Bradford city centre and long overdue. It gives people the confidence that they can invest," he said.

He argued that the recently approved modern bar and restaurant scheme to replace towering Provincial House was out of context with its surroundings and there was an urgent need to look at the city as a whole.

"It is a pity that it was approved, and it is better to wait than do something wrong."

That view was echoed in a front page comment piece in which the Telegraph & Argus believed a golden opportunity to provide the city with a landmark building to be proud of had been missed.

The city is already set for massive changes as a consortium prepares to sign a development agreement with the council to demolish Broadway and Petergate as well as other 1960s buildings at the bottom end of the city.

The consortium, headed by Knottingley-based Caddick Construction, wants to replace the buildings with vast shopping malls, a cinema, two public squares and thousands of parking spaces.

Elsewhere the city is being vastly changed with a £40 million leisure scheme and multi-screen cinema being built on the former Vicar Lane car park.

Today Coun Cooke said the Council realised an overall vision for the city was vital for potential developers and help councillors to judge developments as part of an overall plan.

He said the city was entering one of the most exciting eras in its history, with potential development at prime sites.

Councillor Clive Richardson, chairman of Bradford area planning panel, who voted for the Provincial House development also welcomed the plan.

He said: " It will assist planning councillors making decisions when we are looking at what we want for the city as a whole. It's very good to do it that way, rather than look at one thing at a time."

Liberal Democrat councillor Ann Ozolins, (Idle, Lib Dem), who has put a notice of motion to tonight's council meeting calling urgently for the blueprint, said it would take the city ahead but could not compensate for the failings of the past.

Chairman of Bradford Retail Action Group Jeff Frankel welcomed the proposal and said it would make the city centre more viable for retail and commercial users as well as consumers.