The Bradford Urban Garden will be alive with the sound of music this summer.

A programme of arts and community events planned for the city centre site looks set to include brass band concerts, interactive art, theatre, mini music festivals and film screenings. And the team behind it all wants your input.

Now that hoardings around the Westfield site have begun to be removed, there are glimpses of pathways, benches and the urban greenery that has been shooting up there over recent weeks.

Designed as an interim measure making use of the site following Westfield’s retail-led development being mothballed, the £300,000 Bradford Urban Garden is due to open to the public within the next month and is set to be a focal point for arts, culture and family activities, drawing people into the city centre.

Arts development agency Fabric is co-ordinating events by Bradford arts organisations.

“It’s going to be very much a ‘people’s space’, whether you’re crossing the site on a pathway, relaxing on a bench or making use of the place in a creative way,” says Fabric director Gideon Seymour. “We want to animate the site, bring it to life and get people using it.”

Organisations involved in the scheme include Kala Sangam, Artworks, Bradford Playhouse, professional artists and Bradford schools, which will be enlisted to create artwork for the green hoardings bordering Westfield’s groundworks.

“Hopefully this will encourage the children to come along with their families and friends,” says Gideon. “We’re also appealing for ideas from the public. We’re in the process of setting up an advisory group, which will look at proposals coming in. Once the site is licensed for live music, we’ll be encouraging people to do informal things there, such as busking.”

Writer Steve Dearden is getting people involved by encouraging them to write about Bradford, with a view to displaying their work on billboards around the site. Steve is holding workshops at South Asian arts company Kala Sangam’s base in St Peter’s House which overlooks the Urban Garden. In the first workshop, Invisible Cities, writers will be encouraged to celebrate Bradford’s past, present and future in written work.

“We know cities through their writers and stories, both their pasts and their imagined futures,” says Steve. “Bradford is an incredibly exciting city to be working with writers in.”

Part of the site will be ‘cultivated’ by ‘art farmers’ from Bradford Playhouse. For the Little Germany theatre, it’s a way of bringing people closer to its home at Chapel Street.

“At the Playhouse we have felt cut off from the city; the hoardings have literally been a barrier stopping people from coming into Little Germany,” says director Eleanor Barrett. “There are lots of people in Bradford, particularly students, who would love what we’re doing at the Playhouse but never go down to that end of town. This is a positive way of making a connection between the city centre and Little Germany.

“Once the hoardings are down it will be a more open, pleasant site, encouraging people to venture forward.”

The ‘Art Farm’ is an arts collective based at the Playhouse. “Art Farm is a metaphor for the different things that will be happening on one site,” said Eleanor. “There are various groups of people – including experienced artists and people who are learning – playing an active role in creating arts and getting involved with the theatre.

“It’s all about rolling up your sleeves and getting on with it. Someone came up with the name ‘art cultivators’ and this became ‘art farmers’.

“It’s an organic development of what’s been happening at the Playhouse. We have weekly ‘art farmer’ meetings every Wednesday evening. More than 100 ‘art farmers’ – volunteers – are split into collectives representing different artistic disciplines, such as photography, live art, film, live music and dance.

The idea is that they will take on some responsibility for programming the Playhouse’s artistic output, ensuring that local people are at the very heart of the venue’s creative direction.”