City Centre





Team Leader & City Centre Worker
Rev Dr Barbara Glasson

CITY CENTRE QUICK LINKS : WHAT'S SPECIAL ABOUT BRADFORD? : ECUMENICAL : MEDIA : CIVIC AFFAIRS


EMAIL BARBARA : teamleader(@)touchstone-bradford.org.uk


This is the context in which Touchstone tries to offer gospel responses:

WHAT'S SPECIAL ABOUT BRADFORD?
Geoff Reid's mini-profile of the City and the Metropolitan District which includes Ilkley, Keighley and the Worth Valley

A CHALLENGING GEOGRAPHY AND CLIMATE
Bradford City Centre is like a bowl - everywhere else is uphill except along the valley of the Beck to Shipley and the River Aire. This explains why the original rail link was via Shipley - George Stephenson avoided gradients. The Bradford Beck comes in from Thornton and Clayton and disappears beneath the city streets, gathering other becks, before lurching leftwards to Shipley. The weather can change every 200 metres as you climb Great Horton Road heading for Queensbury. The southern rim of the bowl is actually the Aire/Calder watershed so at Odsal Top and Wibsey Top you start going downhill again before leaving the Metropolitan District.

A FRUSTRATING ECONOMIC HISTORY IN RECENT DECADES
When Bradford was the wool capital of the world ("Worstedopolis"), Leeds was the poor relation! The decimation of the wool trade in the sixties and seventies had a devastating effect on local self-confidence. Bradford failed to recover from the recession of the early eighties before being plunged into that of the early nineties. Despite everything manufacturing is still above the national average and is higher in Keighley than in the District as a whole. The OFSTED report of 2000 led to Bradford schools being taken out of the hands of the LEA. The District has a relatively small middle class (i.e. higher than average poverty!) and it is fairly easy for decision makers to get to know one another.

A DISTINCTIVE POPULATION MIX

POPULATION OF BRADFORD METROPOLITAN DISTRICT
N.B. Bradford is the only de-industrialised city in Britain with a growing population.

All groups
White
African-Caribbean
Indian
Pakistani
Bangladeshi
 Mixed Religion:
Indians are almost evenly split between Sikhs & Hindus
467665
366041
4006
12504
67994
4967
 6937
100%
78%
1%
3%
15%
1%
 1.5%

TURBULENT POLITICS

  • Bradford Parliamentary politics can be fraught with selection battles and results are often atypical. In 1997 Labour gained Keighley (expected) and Shipley (shock). These were held along with Labour's North, South and West seats in 2001 but in 2005 Conservatives regained Shipley by a narrow margin.
  • Kashmiri / Pakistani politics along with caste and clan often influence local elections. There are 24 Asian Councillors - 27% of the total (15 Labour, 6 Conservative, 2 Lib Dem, 1 Green).
  • Bradford Council has been under no overall control since May 2000 - current state of parties is Labour 36, Conservatives 35, Lib Dem 14, Green 3, BNP 2. The Conservative Group, which has Councillors in inner city Bowling and Barkerend and Toller, run a minority administration. Greens are in Shipley, Lib Dems are mainly in the North and East of the District, BNP are in Queensbury.