Latest news with #Bradfordians
Yahoo
7 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Visitor numbers to Bradford rise - but are they spending money?
After a year of severe disruption in Bradford city centre, the number of people visiting to shop or eat is going up. There has been a 25% increase in footfall in the first quarter of 2025 compared to 2024, according to the Bradford Business Improvement District (BID). The organisation, which represents 600 firms, said last year's figure was severely impacted by roadworks to pedestrianise parts of the centre, and the unexpected closure of the main bus station. But has this resurgence translated to increased spending in independent businesses? The BBC asked traders whether they have seen the high street start to recover. Amy Berry manages The Cake'ole cafe in City Park. She says: "I think it's been a lot better. The buses coming back (into the Interchange) have fixed a lot of the problems. "And then especially with all the events that City of Culture 2025 has brought in. We've had a lot of footfall, it's been pretty good." Ms Berry, 27, has worked in the cafe since it opened in 2019. "We were still trying to come back from Covid. A lot of people were still a bit scared to come out. "It's definitely a lot busier than we were then. "But I think we're now maybe back to where we were pre-Covid, maybe even a bit busier." The pedestrianisation work was part of a £48m Transforming Cities investment which was supposed to be completed before the start of Bradford's City of Culture year. It was only finished in May - five months after the cultural showcase's opening night. The Interchange was closed for safety reasons in January 2024 after a chunk of concrete fell from an underground car park, and only fully reopened this month. Ibrahim Eryatmaz runs Benim furniture shop on Market Street. He says: "I think more people are on the street because Market Street is open for pedestrians. "I can see there are more people but business is still low. "For us it's very low now but if you sell coffees, maybe small items, maybe for them it's potentially better. "But we are a furniture shop and who's passing along this street doesn't have a big effect for us." The 52-year-old did praise Bradford Council, which has halved business rates to encourage more traders to set up in the city centre. But he says many Bradfordians are still cautious when it comes to spending their money on bigger items. John Varey opened his florist's shop with his wife Lisa at the start of the year and has had a promising first few months of trading. "I've seen massive growth from when I first moved in. "Obviously we moved in in winter so we can't really gauge it compared to last year apart from figures. "We got the sales figures from the shop from last year and we've kind of almost doubled what they were doing." Mr Varey, 58, says the high rents being charged by private landlords who are often not based in Bradford does not help businesses thrive in the city centre. Elsewhere, Leeds and Wakefield have seen increases year-on-year in the number of people coming into their centres while Halifax, which is undergoing a £64m town centre improvement project, has seen a fall. Jonny Noble, chief executive of Bradford BID, says the 25% footfall boost has to be viewed in the context of a very low starting point last year. "There is no doubt that 2024 was a tough year for city centre businesses due to ongoing roadworks and the sudden closure of the Interchange. "However we're now seeing strong signs of recovery. "We know there's still work to do, and we're under no illusions - regenerating the city centre takes time and continued effort." He highlights events like the BID's recent Soapbox Challenge as well as those organised by the UK City of Culture 2025 team and the council as reasons why more people are coming into Bradford. Mr Noble adds that he is "optimistic about further increases in footfall, dwell time, and overall business confidence." Listen to highlights from West Yorkshire on BBC Sounds, catch up with the latest episode of Look North. City centre regeneration plans take step forward People urged to return to city centre as works end
BBC News
02-05-2025
- Entertainment
- BBC News
Bill Bailey, Rob Brydon and Jo Whiley announced for Bradford Live
Comedians Bill Bailey and Rob Brydon and DJ Jo Whiley will be among the first performers at Bradford Live, the operator of the new music venue has revealed. The identity of the first acts at the restored Art Deco building that replaced the city's Odeon Cinema have been long awaited after it was sold to Bradford Council for £1 in shows announced for the 3,800-capacity venue include a performance by dance group Diversity, a stand-up comedy night headlined by Phil Wang and a homecoming gig for Bradford rock group New Model Army. Sir Howard Panter, creative director of the venue's operator Trafalgar Entertainment, said: "The wait is finally over and the good times are coming." He added: "We've assembled the kind of opening season that this magnificent venue and Bradfordians deserve and there's more to come with further artists being announced over the coming weeks."Bill Bailey will perform his tour show Thoughtifier on Sunday 31 August. Actors and comedians Bradley Walsh, Brian Conley, Shane Richie and Joe Pasquale - dubbed The Prat Pack - will perform the next day with a "spectacular variety show", including comedy routines and musical performances. Brydon's Christmas show will be staged at the venue on Wednesday 10 December, a festive performance of music, stories and impressions, accompanied by an eight-piece Saturday 4 October, comedian Ed Gamble will host a stand-up comedy night headlined by Phil Wang, with performances by Lou Sanders, Lucy Beaumont and Bradford comic Jonny Pelham. New Model Army, which formed in Bradford in 1980, will perform a homecoming gig alongside Keighley band Terrorvision and Halifax group Paradise Lost on Saturday 13 and TV presenter Whiley will bring her 90s Anthems show to Bradford on Friday 26 shows include jazz vocalist Clare Teal, dance group Diversity, Michael Flatley's Lord of the Dance and naturalist and explorer Steve Backshall, with events scheduled through the later part of Bradford's year as the UK City of Culture and into 2026. Bradford Live was taken over by Trafalgar Entertainment when NEC Group dropped out of running the venue. It had been mired in controversy as tickets had been sold for two tribute act shows, but customers were refunded without explanation. Trafalgar Entertainment signed a 25-year lease over the venue in April. Tickets are being sold at Bradford Live's website. Listen to highlights from West Yorkshire on BBC Sounds, catch up with the latest episode of Look North.
BBC News
08-03-2025
- Entertainment
- BBC News
Beloved items from Fountains Café in Bradford go on display
Items from a beloved café that recently shut have gone on display in one of Bradford's Café in the Oastler Centre closed its doors in March 2023 after 55 Michael and Stella Georgiou said the rise in energy prices and the imminent closure of the Oastler Centre were among the reasons they decided to council's museums and galleries service acquired some of the café's objects after it shut and they have been put on show at Bradford Industrial Museum. The items have been painstakingly cleaned and restored and are on display in the museum's Café and Mary Georgiou opened Fountains Coffee House and Grill in 1968 at Bradford's then newly developed John Street Market (later called the Oastler Shopping Centre).The fabric of the café remained largely unchanged since it opened, and the items on display including unique artwork, the original signage and café furniture all of which reflect the interior design trends of the day. 'Family legacy' According to the Local Democracy Reporting Service, Chris Georgiou who is the second generation of the family who worked in the cafe alongside his brother Michael, said: "We are delighted to see our family's legacy in Bradford being preserved for all at Bradford Industrial Museum. "We started Fountains Café when the open-air John Street Market was first redeveloped in the 1960s, so it's going to be exciting to see the next chapter of markets in the city centre with the new Darley Street Market and also the changes coming with the new City Village project starting."The original interior of the café was the ideal backdrop for filming, and the cafe was used to film scenes from Funny Cow with Maxine Peake and Alun Armstrong, as well as for the 2013 BBC mini-series The Great Train Robbery staring Jim Ferriby, Bradford Council's executive member for healthy people and places said: "Many Bradfordians will remember being taken to the Fountains Cafe as children, with many returning with their own families later in life."I'm pleased that this little slice of nostalgia has been preserved for future generation to enjoy." Listen to highlights from West Yorkshire on BBC Sounds, catch up with the latest episode of Look North.
BBC News
28-02-2025
- General
- BBC News
Bradford: Blue plaque unveiled for women's rights campaigner
A blue plaque is set to be unveiled in tribute to "one of Bradford's most forward-thinking women".Florence White has been described as a "committed" women's rights and pensions campaigner who helped lower the pension age for unmarried women.A plaque for her previously stood at the entrance to the Bradford Mechanics Institute Library from 2007 to December 2023, but the front of the building was damaged when a car crashed into it."Like a lot of great Bradfordians, Florence White was doing things way ahead of her time," said Bradford Civic Society chair Si Cunningham. The plaque - the twelfth of its kind in the city - was due to be unveiled in the same location on Kirkgate as its original on Friday plaque will be unveiled by a representative from the West Yorkshire Pension in Bradford in 1866, Ms White went on to become secretary of the South Bradford Liberal Lauren Padgett, assistant collections curator at Bradford Museums and Galleries, described her as a "committed women's rights and pension campaigner".According to Dr Padgett, Ms White, who was never married, held an inaugural meeting which resulted in the founding of the National Spinsters' Pensions Association at the old Mechanics' Institute on Bridge Street in April 1935."As Secretary for the South Bradford Liberal Party, her eyes were opened to the impoverished plight and financial precarity of unmarried older Bradford women."They faced fewer and lower paid job opportunities and were often unpaid carers for others. The few that could make health insurance contributions often died before they could receive their benefit of a pension at the age of 65."After several years of campaigning, the government lowered the pensionable age for all women to 60 in Cunningham said the pension reform "was probably a pre-cursor to a lot of the privileges enjoyed by many women today". Listen to highlights from West Yorkshire on BBC Sounds, catch up with the latest episode of Look North.
BBC News
27-02-2025
- Entertainment
- BBC News
Bradford culture sculpture celebrates 'incredible city'
A 50ft (15m) sculpture to be installed in Bradford as part of its City of Culture year was inspired by the area's multiculturalism, its creator has Saad Qureshi, who moved with his family from Pakistan to Heaton at the age of eight, said he had designed the Tower of Now to celebrate the "incredible" city's intended to play soundscapes featuring voices in different languages, the tower has since been changed to a solely visual piece of Qureshi, 39, said the sculpture, on the site of the former Hall Ings car park, represented a "culmination of these beautiful cultures and traditions that co-exist" in Bradford. Mr Qureshi, whose work has been exhibited in shows in London, New York and New Delhi, said his formative years in Bradford had always inspired his he said that when he had first told his family he wanted to be an artist, "there was a lot of hesitation initially, from my parents particularly, about what this is going to lead to".Mr Qureshi said it was his art teacher at school, Mrs Robinson, who saw a talent that needed to be nurtured."She was the one that really inspired me and believed in me and convinced my parents that I should study art," he spending his first eight years in Bewal, a small town in rural Pakistan, Mr Qureshi said that on arrival in Bradford he faced having to familiarise himself with a whole new culture and ways of expressing himself."I had to relearn how to communicate in a new language," he said."Art class was my safe space and I remember Mrs Robinson saying, 'if you can't say it, do it'."It was really wonderful for me to be able to develop this visual language." Speaking about the inspiration for his Tower of Now sculpture, which is due to remain in its site in the centre of Bradford until March next year, Mr Qureshi said it was intended to highlight what was special about the city."I've taken small snippets and elements of sacred architecture from different traditions, cultures, religions, and I have woven them together so it sits in harmony in this one single column," he said."If you look at the sculpture, the narrowest part is down at the base of it, so it really talks about this perfect balance that multiculturalism requires."I genuinely feel Bradfordians have this very unique identity that only exists in Bradford, which is a culmination of these beautiful cultures and traditions that co-exist in the city."With Bradford City of Culture 2025 now well under way, and months of special events still ahead, Mr Qureshi said it was "high time Bradford got its due for being the incredible city it is"."I was only very happy and excited that we are finally celebrating what should have been celebrated all along," he to highlights from West Yorkshire on BBC Sounds, catch up with the latest episode of Look North or tell us a story you think we should be covering here.
