AN urban park, more pedestrianised streets and a cinema on top of a multi-storey car park are among the ambitious ideas proposed for a post-lockdown Bradford.

Bradford Civic Society had already been brainstorming ideas on how to make the city centre a more attractive and healthier place before the Coronavirus pandemic and subsequent lockdown arrived.

They had asked members of the public to make suggestions for changes they wanted to see in the city.

The group's Place Panel says the lockdown added greater focus to their work, and have now revealed their ideas.

Some of the more striking proposals include an open air cinema/performance space on top of the Oastler Market car park and creating a new green space on the site of the long delayed Forster Square Leisure development.

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"Pocket parks" like those found in Tokyo and Barcelona, would create several small oasis's through the city, and could be linked to efforts to make more out of Bradford's network of becks, and roads like Westgate could be made more pedestrian friendly.

The Society describes itself as a "critical friend" to Bradford Council, and says there is a feeling that when it comes to the Council and decision making bodies "too much is decided before consultation occurs, and that consultation itself tends to be rather limited."

One of the biggest suggestions in the report calls for Bradford Council to work with British Land to repurpose the mothballed former Royal Mail sorting office site at Forster Square as a large inner city green space.

The site was earmarked for a leisure development of a cinema, shops and restaurants, and although planning permission was granted in 2016 - work on the development never started.

The Civic Society suggests that the new park at the site be temporary, and when work eventually does start on the site, it could be moved to another vacant city centre site.

Oastler Market is due to be demolished in a few years once the Darley Street Market is complete. Before that happens the Society suggests making several changes to the area.

These include turning the top floor of the Oastler Centre car park into a massive outdoor cinema space to allow the crowd-controlled screening of films / entertainment. 

And vacant market stalls in the centre could be removed to better allow social distancing and create extra dining space.

Bradford's empty retail spaces and first and second floors of city centre buildings shoudl be used to encourage independent shops  and businesses and "to incubate a recycle, repair and regenerate artisanal industry."

Other suggestions of changes that could be made in the coming year include:

- Partially closing North Parade on certain evenings to facilitate more outdoor hospitality space for the summer months.

- Closing Kirkgate / Piccadilly to through traffic to allow ease of pedestrian flow from Forster  Square into the city centre

- Gating off the alley between Ivegate and Queensgate to combat persistent drug dealing

- Redesign Market Street to remove the bus shelters that block the pavements and begin the partial reopening of Well Street to buses to allow a more phased transfer of vehicles.  

- Introduce a strategic closure of streets to vehicles in Little Germany to avoid rat-running  and promote more pedestrian walking routes. 

Thee society said: "Bradford Civic Society’s Place Panel is a collective of design-led thinkers who have come together  with the aim of improving urban design and thereby making Bradford a more socially just, inclusive and sustainable city.

"We seek to work with and for Bradford’s bubbling undercurrent of bottom-up, inspired creative citizens and together to participate in shaping the future of our city.

"The Coronavirus pandemic continues to cause widespread disruption to everyday life at the time of writing this report, and there will be significant implications upon the way city centres around the world are used. The pandemic has, in some ways, helped focus the aims of the Place Panel, and initial soundings on social media and in the Telegraph & Argus suggest that there is an  appetite among Bradfordians to make the city centre a healthier place for a post-Coronavirus  world.

"This list of proposals is far from exhaustive. It reflects our observations and thoughts at a specific  moment in time."

Anyone with further suggestions can contact the Civic Society on Twitter at @BradfordCivic

Councillor Alex Ross-Shaw, Portfolio Holder - Regeneration, Planning & Transport on Bradford Council, said: “I’d like to thank the Civic Society’s Place Panel for sharing their thoughts on the future of the city centre with us. We’ve met with them a number of times to discuss key projects like Darley Street Market and the Forster Square Station redevelopment and have always found it to be a productive and valuable session. We’ll be reviewing the document and feed back to them along with all the other suggestions people are sending us as we look at how we can support people socially distancing in the current environment and supporting the district’s development for the years ahead.”