The sun is shining over Bradford. Outside the majestic town hall, people bask in the early summer warmth while contractors prepare for a weekend food festival. The civic square is full of life.
Bradford is a vibrant, diverse city with a population of 560,000, with culture at its heart. But it is not by accident. It has taken a conscious effort – and a lot of work – to put the city on the cultural map.
Recruitment firm GatenbySanderson, The MJ and the city council have assembled a collection of guests to discuss the 10-year culture plan, Bradford's year as City of Culture and the economic growth it has sparked.
But first we begin with a walk through the thriving square to Darley Street Market and food court, one of the developments that are breathing life into the city. There you can shop and dine, watched over by a breathtaking portrait of Bradford-born artist David Hockney, created by Marcus Levine entirely from nails.
In 2025, the year Bradford was City of Culture, 22 million people saw positive stories about the city, transforming perceptions of the place. ‘Eighty percent of our residents said they felt more pride in the district, more connected to the district, as a direct result of UK City of Culture,' O'Donnell says. ‘It's massive for us in terms of growth, in terms of plans for the city…We've got a fantastic new music venue in the city.'
From there, it is on to the Loading Bay arts venue to see the Extraordinary Portraits exhibition, a display of the works arising from the BBC TV series of the same name. Presented by comedian Bill Bailey, it pairs members of the public who have inspirational back stories with artists to capture them on canvas or in sculpture.
Finally, we arrive at one of Bradford's most celebrated Indian restaurants, Jinnah, to discuss the value of the arts over a meal which itself embodies the diversity and rich cultural tapestry of the city.
Kicking off the evening, Bradford City Council chief executive Lorraine O'Donnell starts by explaining the value of Bradford City of Culture. She says the city knew it wanted to work on economic growth and job creation and it put culture at the heart.
‘There was a strong political sphere of cultural-led regeneration way back when the council put together, with partners, a 10-year plan,' she says.
In 2025, the year Bradford was City of Culture, 22 million people saw positive stories about the city, transforming perceptions of the place. ‘Eighty percent of our residents said they felt more pride in the district, more connected to the district, as a direct result of UK City of Culture,' O'Donnell says. ‘It's massive for us in terms of growth, in terms of plans for the city…We've got a fantastic new music venue in the city.'
She cites other projects that have boosted the city as it transformed both before and after the 2025 celebrations: the Darley Street market, public realm in the city centre, parks and the arts. The renowned performing arts institution, the BRIT School, is opening a Bradford campus – its first outside London – next year.
Now Bradford is looking at the legacy of its year as a cultural hub and what benefits will be taken forward for the residents in the future. ‘I think every City of Culture learns from the City of Culture before them,' she says.
More than the culture, it has brought economic growth, regeneration and infrastructure. The number of trains from London to the city increased and now Bradford is set to get a new through train station to provide greater connectivity and a new housing development.
‘It's been described by the Department for Transport as the King's Cross of the North,' O'Donnell says. She is determined to make sure culture is at the heart of the development.
When it came to the City of Culture opening ceremony in January 2025, temperatures plummeted to minus 12 degrees. But despite anxiety over the public not turning up, it was a roaring success. ‘It has just lifted people's spirits. It's made people proud of the district.'
Dan Bates, executive director of Bradford City of Culture, says the initial £10m investment got the project up and running, with a further £40m raised to deliver it and a further £15m from the Government – more than Bradford had ever had for culture before.
‘Our brief was to create 1,000 events. We produced nearly 9,000 events,' he says. ‘We attracted more than 3m people to the district as well.'
There were skills benefits too. More than 5,500 people were trained as part of the celebrations and more than 100,000 actively took part. ‘That means actually joining in,' Bates explains. ‘Doing a workshop, being a performer… So, it's a fantastic, broad range of participation.'
There was, he says, a shift during the programme. ‘We spent the first four months of the year [with] people sitting back and watching and thinking "what are they going to do".'
But suddenly the dial shifted and the people of Bradford took ownership. It moved from what are ‘they' going to do, to what are ‘we' going to do. ‘Our job was done,' he says. ‘We have created memories.'
Andy Williams is now at Birmingham City Council, but he was director of regeneration and economy at Coventry City Council for more than two decades. Around 2010-11, in the run up to the London Olympics, Coventry started to consider what cultural-led regeneration in the city could look like. They wanted to look at ‘how could we benefit from this big spectacle in London, rather than be resentful' it was happening elsewhere.
That led the council to go for UK City of Culture. Despite ‘best laid plans', their 2021 year was hit by the Covid pandemic.
‘We had to reinvent our UK City of Culture… how that worked in the city,' Williams says. But there were upsides: ‘It gave us a real opportunity as a city to come back from Covid.
‘What I found with culture is it brings community and people together in a way that not many other things do,' he says. ‘Culture enabled a range of organisations that wouldn't ordinarily come to the table to come together.
‘It also brought the best out of people… it really did develop a strong sense of social inclusion.'
Despite the obstacles – the lack of trains and transport – Covid brought benefits too. The public realm was recognised more than ever before as people went out to exercise. Opportunities to meet outside brought diverse communities and different generations together.
‘Coming out of it, I think we've changed a lot of our regeneration strategies to be culturally-led regeneration, to be more about what people want in their cities,' he adds.
Our next speaker is Professor Rafaela Neiva Ganga of Liverpool Business School who was a resident of Porto in Portugal when it was City of Culture. In the past 25 years, she has reflected on the impact on residents.
She asks the round table: ‘What really happens to a place, to a city, to a town, when a culture is asked to do the heavy lifting of urban transformation? And more importantly, what happens five, 10, 15, 20 years after that?'
Prof Ganga has studied several cities through their culture journeys and has researched the social value. There are, she suggests, two forms of cultural intervention.
‘In the short-term, the city has a stage.' There are infrastructure changes, headlines and a huge fanfare. There are visitors, visibility, civic pride and a shift in perceptions.
But the second impact is hyper-local, co-created and long-term. Prof Ganga says: ‘We invested years and months, working with the youth group, with the community, to produce work that is often fully grounded in our cultural organisations, in our heritage, in our museums.
‘That isn't glamorous work. It doesn't photograph well. It doesn't make it to the headlines.'
The danger is the high profile, headline-grabbing culture can sometimes ‘exacerbate our social inequalities' as it feels distant. ‘The second kind, the slower kind, that's actually what produced durable effect,' she says. It builds the volunteering, impacts on mental health wellbeing and increases social cohesion.
The slow, expensive, unglamourous work that is ‘hard to count, hard to manage' is difficult to defend during times of squeezed budgets, but the evidence says it changes the lives of people in our towns and cities of culture.
Our final speaker is chief executive of Calderdale MBC, Robin Tuddenham, who agrees culture is about neighbourhoods. He says: ‘It's local, it's granular, it is tactical, long-term, joyful, quirky, crazy, odd. It's all those things.
‘And it is our superpower – culture, heritage, creativity – because it speaks to the history, the towns, the villages, the moors, the valleys, the hills, the weather, the lightness and dark. It really does.'
He describes the ‘poverty of aspiration' in Calderdale, ‘of people not seeing the possibilities'.
‘That's what culture does. It opens your sense of possibility, doesn't it? And that's what's exciting and powerful.'
Round table attendees
Katy Archer – Head of culture and place marketing, Sheffield City Council
Dan Bates – Executive director, Bradford City of Culture
Kerri Farnsworth – Founding director and urbanist, 360 Cityshapers
Prof Rafaela Neiva Ganga – Associate professor of cultural and health management, Liverpool Business School
Lorriane O'Donnell – Chief executive, Bradford City Council
Matt O'Neill – Executive director of growth and sustainability, Barnsley MBC
Helen Pheby – Head of culture, heritage and sport, West Yorkshire Combined Authority
Neil Taylor – Independent director of growth and place
Robin Tuddenham – Chief executive, Calderdale Council
David Watson – Assistant director of culture, policy and events, Bradford City Council
David Wildman – Director for skills and regeneration, Kirklees Council
Michael Wilkinson – Director of strategy and commercial, Opera North
Andy Williams – Director of economy and skills, Birmingham City Council
Louise Yates – Director, Back to Ours Hull
Sally Wilson – Partner, local government, Gatenby Sanderson
Frazer Thouard – Practice lead, local government, Gatenby Sanderson
Gary Evans – Principal consultant, local government, Gatenby Sanderson
Heather Jameson – Editor, The MJ
