Bradford City Centre

Usually just staff cost cutting, like it's not important to keep them open compared to so much more money mis-spent elsewhere ....

 

Why don’t we have a

People who don’t get around the UK, believe everything they watch on GB news, so it’s one sided lazy thinking from the get go. High Streets in most places are on their absolute knees. One close to me, Peterborough a once bustling , thriving place, used to be well worth a trip. It literally is crumbling to the ground. It’s a Tory MP before anyone asks.
We all know why……..It’s Labour’s fault, who haven’t been in Government for 14 years , it’s the EU ‘s fault for pulling all those development grants from under our feet whilst we spend £350 fictitious millions extra on our NHS every week. People have been conned , and yet afraid to admit it, just double down, because it hurts their feelings and their pockets .
No matter the incoming government, they are in for a rocky ride.
The country is debt riddled, we don’t make anything for export, because we voted to make exports more difficult. There is little manufacturing investment other than to the coffers of the Indian Government and Sunaks wife. Read about Infosys, and the child care company she is a massive shareholder in . ( Work that out ) whilst public services have been cut to the bone.
Saddam Hussein crashed and burned when he left office…….. This Government are doing the same.

Loyal used Harrogate as an example of a nice place to live. I live in a far more affluent area for the record, more millionaires per square mile than Harrogate will ever dream of.

Village grass no longer cut, bus services withdrawn, more potholes in the roads than on the moon. Waterways unkemp and prone to flooding and I mean flooding.

Our MP………..Liz , crash the economy, Truss who is sponsored by Taiwan millionaires and ultra right headbangers .

It’s all Labours fault some say. Really?

Move my post with pleasure Admin.

 

Fly tipping is rife here too. Liz Truss’s council imposed a charge for people to drop waste off at the local recycling sites. You can guess the rest.

 

No money cutbacks. It is ridiculous it will cost them more to clean up, false economy.

 

Where do you live Kev? I thought Truss had quit politics? I’m not in touch with politics much as it winds me up too much

 

I moved from Bradford to Leeds and the difference was immense, The people of Leeds seemed proud of the City and seemed to care about the city they live in whilst in Bradford no one was bothered or cared at the state of the place they lived in, I travelled from Leeds at 8.30 in the morning and the Leeds City centre was buzzing with commuters. workers shoppers with shops and cafes open and busy, Got to Bradford around 9am and it was deserted with very few people and anything open until around 10am and even then not many around, No wonder its in decline

 

N Norfolk , and no she hasn’t.

 

Not sure if I posted this on this thread or another but if you think Bradford is bad you should try Wakefield. I went there to look at a possible job and I’ll be honest it was shocking. I have walked round Bradford and Halifax, neither of which are great(excluding Piece Hall which somehow still needs public subsidy) but Wakefield centre took it to a whole new level

 

Leeds has had billions in investment, private and public, over the past twenty years, whereas Bradford has been left to rot. Mills and factories closed decades ago and now all the white collar jobs - HMRC, Post Office, Banks & building society HQs etc have either shut down completely or been ‘regionalised’, for which read ‘moved to Leeds’. It becomes a self fulfilling prophesy - the more that gets shut down the less likely other businesses want to move here.
Politicians and companies only seem to be aware of two places in ‘the north’ - Leeds and Manchester. Between them they hoover up the vast bulk of any northern investment. Everywhere else feeds on scraps and simply cannot compete with them

 

I raise you Dewsbury
Pushing Bradford for the worst place in Yorkshire

 

There is no single power of authority pushing Bradford to the front of the queue. It ought to be given the total lack of investment. I agree about Leeds and Manchester, and it hasn’t improved having a Mayor for West Yorkshire who also bases herself in Leeds. There is a new market place being built but I am sure it will be another white elephant. I also agree that the council also are not receiving the same amount of council tax receipts due to house prices being low priced. It will not make a jot of difference which colour of government get in either, the ruination of Bradford has been going on for decades.

 

A lot of that has nothing to do with government, pubs and shops have been shutting because people's drinking and shopping traits have changed over a generation. People either now migrate to the big city developments such as Leeds, Liverpool or Manchester or the niche destinations to eat and socialise such as Haworth or Saltaire. Companies like Amazon have seem the death of the high street with deliveries straight to your door. I'm no apologist for this useless government but no government could have turned round this countries local economies once the rot had set in, and that rot had set a lot longer than 24 years ago.

 

Bradford has become a dumping ground for waifs and strays as areas like Leeds and Manchester become desirable city centre living destinations. If I had chance to leave I wouldn't miss anything about the centre of Bradford at all, they could level the place for me.

 

With two cities so close and one of them has far better road and rail link infrastructure you would be crazy to waste money investing in the city that doesn't have that. It makes logical sense to put that investment into the better equipped area, Bradfords geography doesn't lend itself to infrastructure, it's one of the reasons they never linked the railway stations, the handicap of the lie of the land made the costs astronomical. A cost they would have never recouped.

 

Yes, there’s certainly a lot of truth in what you’re saying there. Drinking and shopping changes have certainly hammered the centres of unfashionable towns and cities harder than the nicer ones. On the rare occasions that people decide to go out shopping or eating and drinking they want to go to places that are nicer, have better shops, bars and restaurants etc. So the places that are doing well keep doing well and the other places just decline further. It becomes a vicious circle. Certainly, I’d rather go to Leeds, Ilkley or Harrogate than to the centre of Bradford, whether for shopping, eating out or entertainment.

But there’s no doubt that places that are already more vulnerable will be hardest hit by economic downturns and by government budget cuts because they are less able to ride out economic turbulence. So Bradford has suffered a quadruple whammy compared to places like Leeds, Harrogate and Manchester, specifically because of Tory government decisions:

1.The general economic government incompetence of the last fourteen years - austerity economics causing our economy to keep contracting and/or failing to grow while other comparable countries recovered from the global banking crash by reflating their economies.

2. Specific government cuts to local authorities using a ridiculous formula which persistently hits poorer northern authorities much harder than richer southern ones. And particularly hits poorer places like Bradford, which have been more reliant on specific government anti-poverty grants than more affluent places like Leeds.

3. Loss of massive amounts of EU grants because of Brexit.

4. What targeted government investment there has been is invariably directed at Leeds and Manchester rather than places like Bradford, thus widening the existing inequalities even further.

 

And City of Culture.

 

So much for "levelling up" !