BRADFORD will see the return of a science festival to the city centre after the announcement of a new annual summer event.

City Park will host the two day Bradford Science Festival in July, which is being run by the National Science and Media Museum.

The first of a series of annual science festivals in the city was held in 2012, with subsequent events proving bigger and more popular. However there was no science festival last year after the previous organisers no longer had the capacity to carry it on.

This year’s festival will be a partnership between the museum and organisations including the University of Bradford, Bradford Council and Bradford College.

The event will see City Park divided up into different “zones” including a future zone, featuring state of the art robots, the Bradlab in front of the Pavilion, where there will be interactive experiments, water experiments in the mirror pool, and a large stage in front of the magistrates’ court featuring top science themed acts.

There will also be an area where people can discuss what careers with local scientific employers are available.

And in the museum there will be an exploration of the “superpowers” the human bodies are capable of.

Vicky Clifton, our head of learning at the museum, said this event was a re-launch for the festival, and it was hoped it will grow in future years.

She said: “It’s going to be a fantastic event. We’re going to make it really Bradford focused and give it a really good local feel. It will be looking into the scientific history of the city.

“This year will help kick start is as a much bigger event in future years.

“We want to have some real wow moments that are going to really surprise people.

“Everything is going to be top quality, there will be some amazing things that you don’t often see outside of London.

“The tag line is going to be ‘Surprising science in the city.’

“It would be easy to do it all in the museum, but we really wanted to get it out in the city centre.

“The museum has the new focus on science, so we thought we’d lead on this, as no-one else was able to take it on this year.”

The festival will launch with a special Lates event at the museum on Friday July 14, and run in City Park on Saturday 15 and Sunday 16.