The people of Bradford know what this city needs if it is to thrive as a shopping centre. Time and again we hear calls for more better-quality retailers to move in, giving the whole central area a boost and triggering an influx of other businesses which could help to fill the scores of empty or boarded-up shops. That, in turn, would enable Bradford to compete successfully with surrounding towns and cities and the out-of-town shopping malls.

Things are happening at last. The preparatory work has begun for the massive Broadway scheme. New shops and stores will in due course be opening in that lower section of the city centre. At the top end of town, too, building work is already going ahead on the site of the former Rawson Market.

When those two developments are up and running, the benefits hopefully will ripple out into the rest of the central area. It is important for that to happen. We need more retailers to sign up for the Bradford experience, not only in those areas which currently have the spotlight on them but across the whole of the city centre, which needs to be constantly evolving.

In this context, the special attention given to Bradford during talks between the Chancellor Gordon Brown, Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott and Trade Secretary Patricia Hewitt and some of Britain's biggest high-street retailers has come at an excellent time.

After years in the doldrums Bradford is now moving ahead. The more heavyweight people who put their shoulders behind it, the greater the chances of it gathering momentum on its way to a brighter future.