Video tour of Ivegate and Kirkgate after Heritage Zone gets £2m grant

The new zone covers historic streets such as Ivegate, Bridge Street and Kirkgate Buildings in those areas will be eligible for funding to bring long empty buildings back into use, and remove modern frontages from some of the city’s architectural gems.

The funding has come from Historic England, and the body says it will “make the area more attractive for future investment” as well as paying greater respect to Bradford’s past.

In light of the many comments from readers, we decided to produce a video walk-through of two streets at the heart of the zone - Kirkgate and Ivegate.

Kirkgate, as seen on Friday afternoon (Image: T&A) Kirkgate has long been regarded as one of the city's main shopping streets, although the opening of The Broadway seemed to intensify the reduction in footfall in Kirkgate.

Meanwhile, the steep characterful Ivegate is one of Bradford's oldest thoroughfares, if not the oldest, and Bradfordians are never slow to give their views on its past and present.

A view of Ivegate (Image: T&A) During our visit, at around mid-afternoon on Friday, Ivegate seemed relatively quiet, although some of the pubs appeared to be starting to busy-up.

Nearly all the retail units were occupied and open - in contrast to some city centre streets - so some credit should go to traders who have battled through one of the toughest times for footfall in Bradford's history.

Another view of Ivegate (Image: T&A)

However, the walk-through video also revealed that concerns raised by T&A readers - relating to lack of variety of shops and some of the bright modern frontages - are valid to some extent.

Perhaps the funding available through the new Heritage Action Zone can start to address this situation.