Bradford’s City Village: “The start of a new era” for the city
The beginning of work on Bradford’s City Village development is “the start of a new era” for the city, according to the Council Leader.
Demolition work is now underway on the first phase of the huge regeneration scheme, which will eventually see 1,000 new homes, business units and green spaces developed in the city centre.
The former Bazaar building has almost been cleared. This will soon be followed by the demolition of Shaw house, recently the home of Bradford Brewery, and the multi storey car park next to Oastler Market.
In their place will be a development of townhouses that form the first phase of the ambitious project that was first proposed by Bradford’s former Labour leadership and is now being continued by the new Reform Executive.
At an event on Thursday to mark the beginning of demolition work, Bradford Council Leader Stephen Place said the development was one people would be proud of.
Phase 1 is made up of 97 homes over the upper Oastler site and a number of Council owned car parks on the opposite side of Westgate.
The homes will be a mix of shared ownership, and affordable and social rent, and will be owned and managed by Bradford-based housing provider, Incommunities.
It will be followed by the construction of large apartment buildings on the site of the Kirkgate Shopping Centre and the former Oastler Market, as well as new public parks.
The ground floors of these buildings will include space for shops, cafes and bars.
In a statement to mark the beginning of demolition Councillor Andrew Judson, Bradford Council’s Executive Member for Economy, Regeneration and Planning, said: “These sites have played an important role in Bradford’s history and we are now preparing them for a new future at the heart of our city centre.”
The scheme is being delivered with the support of ECF (a partnership between Homes England’s National Housing Bank, L&G and Muse).
The demolition and enabling works are being supported via the first release of capital from £30m already secured for City Village through Homes England’s Brownfield, Infrastructure & Land (BIL) fund. The neighbourhood has also secured £13.2 million funding from the West Yorkshire Combined Authority.
Coun Place acknowledged people would have fond memories of the Oastler Market and Kirkgate buildings, but said: “Bradford has been stood still for too long.
“This is the start of a new era for Bradford. We were a city built on textiles and wool, now we’re moving to industries like advanced manufacturing and space technology.”
Referring to the site of the Phase 1 of City Village, he said: “The area had become quite run down – it got that way after years of a lack of investment, a lack of opportunity and a lack of will to make it any better.”
The area around the City Village is dominated by empty building, including a former NHS building next to the Phase 1 site that stands empty and has been on the market for some time.
Coun Place said the hope was that developers and businesses see the regeneration happening with City Village and decide to make use of these buildings.
He said: “We’ve got all these wonderful buildings. We’re open for business. There is the political will to push Bradford forward. If you are thinking of opening a business, a bistro, a café, a comedy club, a jazz lounge, come and see us at Bradford Council and we’ll do the best we can to work with you.
“We’ve got these wonderful old buildings that need looking after. We need to improve the retail offer and the social aspect of Bradford. If we want people to come and live here we need places for them to go out to eat, places to drink, places to meet friends.”
As with many regeneration projects in Bradford, there has been an element of negativity to the City Village plans from some residents.
Addressing this, Coun Place said: “There are two things people think about with this development. First that it is costing Bradford taxpayers – it is being privately funded.
Second is that it will become a run down area. Because of the public realm we are delivering alongside the new houses, that isn’t going to happen. We want this to be a place people are proud of.”
Martin Smith from Metropolitan Demolition, spoke about plans for the demolition. He said: “Once we’ve finished demolition of the Bazaar we’ll move on to the Shaw building. Simultaneously we’ll start knocking down the car park of the Oastler building.” The car park demolition will begin in the middle of the structure before moving towards Rawson Road. It will then continue on the Westgate side of the structure before demolition work begins in the former Morrisons, and then on to the main Oastler building.
It is expected to be completed in Spring.
Contractors have already started removing asbestos from the building.
The strip out of the Kirkgate Centre has begun, and a six month demolition will begin in Spring.