To guage reaction to Channel 4’s Make Bradford British, the Telegraph & Argus invited a cross-section of panelists representing the district’s most diverse cultures to watch a preview of the documentary before it went out on air last night.

Those who came and had their say included Zulfi Karim, general secretary of the Bradford Council For Mosques; Irene Barnowski, chairman of Bradford District European Forum; Rudi Leavor, chairman of Bradford Synagogue; Saroj Joshi, vice-chairman of the Hindu Cultural Society, and her colleague Pushpa Brabhaker; Jane Vincent, Bradford businesswoman and co-founder of Positive Bradford, and Helena Danielczuck, Central and Eastern European Community development worker for mental health organsiation Sharing Voices Bradford.

Jane Vincent said: “The title totally annoyed me. It got the programme off to negative start even before it began. You can go anywhere in the UK and find other cities just as diverse as Bradford. Bradford is British, it doesn’t need making British at all. It was reality TV, if you put a lot of people together and make them live in a house regardless of colour, creed or what sex they are there is going to be controversy - it’s human nature. I think it’s all going to kick off in the second part, I’ll be watching out of curiosity.

“Something positive was starting to come out of it, though, and that was people showing signs of learning and understanding more about each other’s way of life – why people pray at a mosque, why people don’t drink. It showed if people are willing to take a step back, they can learn and that can be a positive experience.”

Rudi Leaver said: “It’s an ambiguous title, it pre-supposes Bradford is not already British. The title is just like the documentary itself, a mish-mash of ideas and I did not not really know what the show makers were trying to get at. I just couldn’t fathom it.

“Was it meant to be entertainment, education, to show Bradford in a good or bad light?

“Put eight people in a house and then force them to share rooms isn’t going to get things off to a good start. Many people don’t like sharing rooms with people they know, never mind strangers. So when one of the men moved his bed out it was already showing segregation, but it was manufactured segregation.

“I actually felt like walking out – it didn’t do anything for me. It was if the directors had told the camera team to go to Bradford and make things happen, make it controversial and never mind the consequences. It was a set-up.”

Zulfi Karim said: “It’s an offensive title. It’s not representative of where Bradford is now. It’s in bad taste.

“It suggests there are issues in Bradford that are not really issues at all. It was just another Big Brother offering from Channel 4.

“Bradford is one of the most diverse cities in the country yet it doesn’t have any more issues than anywhere else. It’s a typical negative media portrayal of Bradford. The programme focused too much on Muslims and the white community. It was too much about one person’s belief in particular.

“Religion is very personal, everyone has a right to practice what they believe in and everyone has a right to be respected.”

Irene Barnowski said: “I am British by birth but my ethnic origin is Ukrainian. It is possible to do both.

“I represent 11 different communities as chairman of the Bradford District European Forum yet there was no representation of any of them in this documentary.

“Many of them came to Bradford after the Second World War as displaced persons, set up homes, worked in the mills, established themselves in this city and have contributed greatly.

“If the social experiment was to test if Bradford’s different communities can live together, then it failed before it started because it wasn’t truly representative.”

Helena Danielczuck said: “The title upset me more than offended me.

“Communities such as ours have integrated and worked alongside each other and by doing that we can learn about each other.

“I feel as though the documentary focused more on colour than anything else. It’s not shown Bradford in a good light.

“People do live harmoniously here and they do get on. Bradford has a poor media image as it is but people are working hard to establish it as the growing city it is. Sadly anyone watching this programme from the outside will not get to see that.”

Saroj Joshi said: “One of the first things I noticed was that there was no representation at all of the Hindu community in Bradford.

“We wondered why Bradford had been targeted for this. It seems to be negative views of Bradford all the time. Why doesn’t anyone look at the positive things?

“This wasn’t the real views of the majority of people in Bradford. People from outside Bradford who watched this will take away a very negative viewpoint of the district.”

Pushpa Prabhakar said: “There is much more to Bradford than we have seen on this programme. It is as if they wanted to show Bradford in a bad light.

“The perceptions people have about Bradford are wrong and this makes me angry. Integration is about much more than trying on different clothes or eating a curry.”