The announcement that Bradford's superb St George's Hall is to be revamped and brought into the 21st century is fantastic news for the city.

St George's has a fabulous reputation which has been under-exploited in recent years and there is huge potential for it to become one of the finest cultural venues anywhere in the north of England.

The news will be a bitter blow to those campaigning to save the Odeon and develop it as a music venue but it is a far more realistic and inspiring proposition all round.

In many ways, St George's is already everything that the Odeon is not: it has stunning, listed architecture; it is completely in keeping with the very best of Bradford's Victorian heritage; it has fabulous, and widely-recognised acoustics; it has genuine history and tradition behind it; and it has properly thought-out potential to provide a venue that can meet the demands of local audiences.

Expert consultants have spent a great deal of time measuring the marketplace across Bradford and the North and they have concluded that the city cannot commercially sustain a venue of the 3,000-plus seat capacity proposed by the enthusiastic amateurs and others who believe the Odeon could rise again as a concert hall.

These consultants are acknowledged experts in their field and they have taken great pains to show that every entertainment venue has to have a sustainable business plan that works and that developing St George's is the best possible option for Bradford.

It is the ideal venue to lead the cultural regeneration that Bradford needs to go hand in hand with the rebirth of the city.