BRADFORD CITY VILLAGE

Bradford City Village:

At Home In The Heart of the City

We’re developing a vision for a sustainable new residential neighbourhood in Bradford city centre.

Bradford Council, in partnership with ECF (formerly the English Cities Fund), is developing plans to unlock the potential of what was the former retail and trading heart of Bradford city centre.

City Village will involve the delivery of up to 1,000 homes in the ‘Top of Town’ and Darley Street areas.

At the end of last year, we started a conversation with local people about our early-stage vision for City Village. The wealth of feedback we received has helped to shape our vision and emerging masterplan.

This masterplan is now starting to take shape, and we’d like to share some of our initial design ideas with you.

Christmas dsiplay in Bradford city centre

About

The City Village regeneration area covers approximately 25 hectares in the city centre to the north of Centenary Square and Bradford Forster Square station to the west.

Historically the retail and commercial heart of the city, the City Village boundary includes three potential development sites owned by the Council: the Kirkgate and Oastler Centres and land at Chain Street, all of which have been committed to the delivery of the City Village scheme.

Chain Street

Oastler Centre

Kirkgate Centre

Aerial view of the City Village regeneration area site showing the three key sites

The English Cities Fund: Unlocking Urban Potential

City Village is being brought forward by Bradford Council and ECF, a development company that brings together the combined expertise and ambition of Homes England, investors Legal & General, and national placemaker Muse.

ECF is a specialist in large scale, area-based regeneration and works in partnership with councils to transform urban areas to thriving, mixed-use communities.

Our vision for City Village: A place to live, work and thrive

The vision for City Village is to create a green, healthy, sustainable and community-friendly city centre neighbourhood.

The role of town and city centres everywhere is changing. While the success of The Broadway shows the continued strength of retail in Bradford, the sector no longer plays the dominant role that it used to.

City Village is about responding to these new challenges and opportunities by balancing retail against other uses that will bring more people into the city centre.

As an increasingly liveable and vibrant city, there’s a huge opportunity in Bradford for the kind of city centre living that is available in many other cities.

City Village provides an opportunity to deliver up to 1,000 new homes in an accessible, city centre location with great linkages with the surrounding city centre and public transport.

Precedent image illustrating the potential range of new homes that could be delivered.

Precedent images illustrating the potential range of new homes that could be delivered.

While housing is at the heart of this vision, City Village will also boost new opportunities for revitalised independent retail, cafes, bars and new business spaces.

Safer roads, landscaped public spaces and quality urban design will help make City Village a place where people will choose to live, work and thrive and where businesses will want to invest, trade and grow.

To make sure we realise the potential of this exciting project, we want to involve the local community as we develop our vision for City Village. This will help ensure that the development brings a wide range of benefits to local communities and businesses.

Public engagement

Throughout December 2023 and January 2024, we undertook an initial phase of public engagement to introduce the vision for Bradford City Village and seek feedback from local people to help shape the plans. Over the course of this phase of engagement, we:

Received over 400 responses from people across Bradford.
Held three community roadshow events at the Kirkgate and Broadway shopping centres.
Undertook focus groups with accessibility organisations.
Held workshop sessions with young people from local colleges.
Met with Bradford Property Forum
Met with representatives from Bradford Central Mosque.
Visited local businesses in the area.

To view a summary of our initial phase of visioning engagement, please click on the button below.

City Village visioning engagement

Masterplan update

While the Bradford City Village masterplan is still taking shape, we wanted to provide an update on our latest thinking.

In response to the feedback we received during our visioning engagement, we have developed a set of principles that is guiding our emerging vision for Bradford City Village.

Principle 1: A ‘green’ city centre neighbourhood
Principle 2: A range of housing types to suit all
Principle 3: A range of community amenities
Principle 4: Creating a sustainable community for the future
Principle 5: Respecting heritage

While our plans for each of the three proposed development sites are still taking shape, we’ve started to form ideas about the character that each of these sites could have.

To view more information on our emerging City Village masterplan, including indicative CGIs and plans, you can view our project update document.

May 2024 Project Update

Chain Street site

The emerging plans envisage the Chain Street site providing energy efficient lower-density family housing in the form of modern townhouses, set around a new community green. We think around 50 new townhouses could be accommodated at Chain Street, in a mix of two-four bedroom properties with gardens and parking.

Kirkgate site

Closest to the city centre core, we think the Kirkgate site is the most appropriate for higher density apartment living, with buildings set around attractive new courtyards. We think around 400 new apartments could be accommodated here, with lots of active ground floor spaces for shops, places to eat and drink and other leisure uses. We are still exploring potential building heights in this location.

By pulling the line of the new buildings back from Darley Street, the Kirkgate site also provides the opportunity to create a fantastic new green city park – providing a brand new attraction for both residents and visitors – and also reveal some of the historic buildings that have been obscured by the Kirkgate since its construction.

The plans for this site also include a new park with lawns, planting and seating. We envisage that it could also be used as a multi-functional space for small events.

Oastler site

We think the Oastler site provides the ideal opportunity for a real variety of lower and medium density family housing, in a mix of townhouses and apartments, set around a network of outdoor squares and courtyards. Our early plans include around 70 townhouses, with gardens and parking, and in the region of 380 apartments.

It’s too early to confirm exact building heights, but we think that buildings here could range from four to six storeys, with the potential for one building to reach a maximum of ten storeys.

The emerging design for this site aims to promote close linkages with the adjacent new pocket park and vibrant North Parade area.

Next steps

Throughout summer 2024, our team will be following up with a number of key groups in the local community, including accessibility organisations, local business and property leaders, faith groups and others.

Local people will once again have an opportunity to have their say on the updated masterplan and potential first phase of development later this year when the plans are more progressed.

After the next phase of engagement later this year, we will be working towards the submission of a first planning application in Spring 2025, with a potential start on site later in 2025.

If you have any questions about the emerging City Village masterplan, you can get in touch with us via email (info@bradfordcityvillage.com) or by phone (0808 1753 228).

If you would like to receive updates about the project, please click the link below to subscribe to our mailing list.

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