Residents spearheading a £50 million revamp of Bradford's Manchester Road corridor have broken free of Bradford Council and formed a private company.

The New Deal for Communities scheme, which is run by a board of residents, councillors and business people, will now be known as Bradford Trident Ltd.

'Community directors' representing residents include a postman, bus driver, unemployed people and a dinner lady.

The company is independent of Bradford Council, which has been closely involved in getting the project off the ground. But Councillor Ian Greenwood, the leader of the Labour group on the council, is still chairman.

The run-down inner city areas of Park Lane, Marshfields and West Bowling will be transformed over the next ten years by the scheme - Bradford's biggest.

The name Trident was chosen to reflect the fact that three distinct neighbourhoods are being helped under the programme, which aims to cut crime, create jobs, boost businesses, and regenerate poor housing.

Wage subsidies are being offered to local employers as well as cash bursaries to coax youngsters into further education.

The 'Y-block' council flats around the Park Lane area are to be replaced with housing association and private housing.

Two beat bobbies, paid for with New Deal cash, are on patrol and soon people on community service orders will be employed fitting locks and bolts to homes in burglary hot spots.

Steve Hartley, chief executive of Trident, said: "The difference for us is that we are now an independent company in our own right, and have more control over what we do. We wanted the programme to have its own identity."

The development means Trident is more independent of Bradford Council than the similar outfits spending millions of pounds regenerating the Newlands, Keighley, and Manningham areas.

But it is not as independent as the £17 million Royds programme, which has gone a stage further by gaining 'accountable body' status.

The Trident board has voted to release the minutes of its meetings to local mosques, churches and community centres in a spirit of openness and will decide in the New Year whether to hold its meetings in public.