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A few years ago I worked through various reasons for Bradford`s commercial decline when considered against Leeds.
I have posted this before, though it has been somewhat revised and for re-posting, the length and the fact it has nothing to do with RL I apologise.
[size=150Pity poor Bradford
[/size
It is impossible to consider the current differences between Bradford and Leeds without looking at, and examining the history of why, and how, these differences came about.
If we go back to the 1950s or `60s, and even into the mid seventies, there was actually little to choose between the two, indeed many would have said that Bradford had probably the smarter of the two city centres. Leeds, of course, was always the larger, by a considerable margin, but in every other respect the two were demographically very similar. Whether we look at shopping, work and business, transport links or housing, the two cities were, if not twins, almost like big and little sister.
Back then, shopping in both cities had a similarly balanced profile. There were high quality shops in every retail sector; both had all the major `chain` stores and both had their mid range and cheaper outlets. However, in a gradual drift starting in the seventies, Bradford has lost virtually all of the `quality` stores which have been almost entirely replaced by the now omnipresent `we sell cheaper` outlets; Busby`s (later Debenhams), Sunwin House, C & A, Chadwicks, Christopher Pratts, Brown Muffs, British Home Stores, Claydens, O. S. (Ossie) Wains, Marshall and Snelgrove, Novello`s, HR Jacksons and most recently Woods music shop have all gone, one by one, falling like dominos. These have been replaced by the likes of TJ Hughes, Primark, TK Maxx, Matalan and a myriad of nothing costing more than a pound shops.
It is very true to say that both cities had a strong commercial side with global, national and local companies all vying for dominance in the marketplace. The automotive and engineering industries were particularly well represented in Bradford by internationally known companies such as Hepworth and Grandage, International Harvester, Crofts, Carter Gears, and Renold, all of whom had a large presence and positive effect on the economy and profile of the city. Other major manufacturers to leave or go out of business during the decline included Baird Television, a part of the Thorn group, Low Moor Alloy and Steel, Bowling Ironworks and of course a number of well known textile manufacturers such as Salts, John Foster, Associated Weavers and Carpets International. In the last couple of years H. C. Slingsby, the nationally known truck and handcart manufacturer left Bradford for `another city` a few miles to the east.
Similarly, with transport it was equally easy to reach all destinations from either city, and the mainline stations in Bradford had exactly the same kind of direct rail service to the whole country that Leeds still enjoys to this day. Road links were also alike and, in those pre-motorway days, it was no harder to travel from Bradford to anywhere in the UK, than it was from Leeds.
So what changed? Why did Leeds become the burgeoning local metropolis and centre of everything whilst Bradford became king of the pound shops? Obviously, it`s quite impossible to ignore the effect that the collapse of the British textile industry had on Bradford. The sheer scale of it was mind boggling; between the early sixties and the late eighties the numbers involved in textiles dropped from around seventy five thousand to fewer than thirty thousand, and today there are probably fewer than one thousand people employed directly in the textile sector.
However, it must never be forgotten that though the extent and speed of its demise was clearly a heavy blow, and the effect on employment was substantial, Bradford in the twentieth century was always far more than just a wool town and had a very solid base in many areas, not least engineering, so though it clearly had a large effect, I don`t accept that this was the chief reason for the decline.
No, in my opinion the real reasons were far more subtle than that. I don`t believe that the principal causes were anything that could realistically have been changed by the actions of local MPs, councillors or business groups, nor were the two earlier decisions which set in train the commercial decline of Bradford necessarily wrong per se; wrong for Bradford, certainly, but not necessarily wrong in a national, or even regional, sense. I am, though, unable to say the same about the final judgment which went against the city. This, quite frankly, was an absurd decision, which if it had been intended to deliberately damage the city could not have been bettered.
Of the three major decisions; the earlier two, the initial drivers of change, were of a logistical nature, and the later one was largely financial in its character. All were made by national government (technically, one was made by the board of a nationalised industry, but there is little doubt that this decision could not have been made without, at the very least, the active consent of the government of the day), the first in the fifties, one in the sixties, and the last in the eighties, each of which in my view, considerably militated against the best interests of Bradford.
The first to be brought to fruition, though it was actually the second to be announced, was the decision to centre the Yorkshire area of the re-organised and much reduced, rail network on Leeds, rather than, perhaps, York or even more unlikely, Bradford itself. The whole strategy behind Dr. Beechings `re-shaping of the Railways` plan was in itself a desperate reaction to the previous, hopelessly unsuccessful railway modernisation plan of the fifties, and, when the basic tenet of cutting out the loss making rural network failed to deliver anything like the required savings, it swiftly moved to cutting back the inter city network.
If we are to accept, and I have to say that many didn`t, that there was little alternative to the overall strategy, then the decision, based purely on a what was best for the national railway system, was probably the correct one. Leeds after all is the biggest centre of population in the area, and had logic on its side, but the detrimental effect of Leeds retaining, and perhaps, even enhancing, its rail links, whilst Bradford was relegated to a branch line is very hard to discount when considering why Bradford`s position vis a vis Leeds has changed so markedly for the worse. The difference today is shown by the fact Leeds has currently around eighty trains to London per day, whilst Bradford boasts just three.
The second decision to come to fruition, also transport related, was the one which decided that the motorway network would also be centred on Leeds. This compounded the effect of the earlier rail re-organisation and effectively installed Leeds as the transport `hub` of West Yorkshire. This wasn`t just a local nuisance for Bradford travellers though, for it happened at the time when the economic climate meant that many companies, both national and international, were looking for new regional headquarters and there is little doubt that Leeds` newly acquired, superior transport links gave it the edge it needed to become the major attraction for most of the new commercial activity in the region. One only has to look at the many companies which made Leeds their local HQ during the seventies and later the eighties (with extra reasons) to see the beneficial effect.
This second blow, was perhaps, the biggest so far, both to Bradford`s prestige as a major city and also to its economic chances, for not only did the M1 now lead directly to Leeds, but Bradford`s name didn`t even appear on road signs until travellers were around fifteen miles from the city. Bradford might not have been disadvantaged quite so much if the earlier option of a route to the west, between the two cities and linking with the A1 at Dishforth, had been taken, but the eastern route eventually decided upon, simply compounded the damage caused by the primary decision.
The third setback though was the hammer blow. It was the, from a modern day perspective, ironic decision of the Thatcher government to grant the `status` to Leeds of being a `disadvantaged area` in the eighties. Leeds, in an economic sense, had actually been pulling ahead of Bradford since the mid seventies and with the previous transport changes, had been mopping up new business in the region long before it was designated a development area. There is, of course, little doubt that Leeds had, and still has, its problems; anyone looking at Gipton, Belle Isle, Scott Hall, Osmondthorpe and Quarry Hill, for example, would have had to be blind to not notice the real difficulties faced in those areas, but to suggest, even in those considerably more equal days of the eighties, that Leeds was disadvantaged whilst Bradford wasn`t, quite frankly, simply beggars belief.
There were a number of very important advantages accruing to Leeds from the listing; firstly that stamp duty was abolished on property, which basically meant that all the business properties in the city were, overnight, worth 4% more. As a development area, privileged access was obtained to UK and later EC monies, particularly business re-location grants, all of which came with cheaper business rates and low rental deals on property, all financed from central funds. The choice of Leeds as the regional capital was now all but assured as the steady stream of companies, and government departments (the DHSS, for example), moving to the city turned into a flood.
Of course Leeds then gained a much larger pool of employers , with their highly remunerated head office staff, often on re-location budgets, which caused a great deal of extra house price inflation and general yuppification; expensive eateries, wine bars etc . This was, in some ways, the start of the wane in fortune for Bradford city centre. Bradford people working in Leeds were also shopping in Leeds, mostly from the demographic sector using the `quality` shops, and so the decline continued. As the prosperity of one city rose so the other endured a slow and painful deterioration, the sign of things to come.
In conclusion, if one wanted to be over simplistic, one could say that the problem for Bradford was that it was just unfortunate in being too close to Leeds. But Bradford has always been `too close` to Leeds and had competed successfully for generations, but after being, effectively, shunted into a siding by the rail network, then turned into the back of beyond by the road system and finally having to endure the consequences of the government using our tax revenues to pay businesses to move next door, Bradford has surely suffered enough.
Pity poor Bradford, indeed!
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