The £200 million Broadway/Forster Square redevelopment scheme is vital to the regeneration of Bradford. The area has been blighted for far too long, growing ever shabbier and neglected with office and retail premises standing empty or being occupied on short-term leases.

Something needs to start happening soon to bring this part of the city back to life and let it play its key role in the rebirth of Bradford as a shopping centre. Unfortunately, like some other schemes in the past elsewhere in the city, it has suffered a setback - in this case the refusal of the Government regeneration agency Yorkshire Forward to fill a gap in funding.

Now comes another blow to the proposal with the revelation that unless work on the road scheme on which its success largely depends can go ahead by this summer, a £6 million grant from Europe towards it could be lost.

Bradford needs that road scheme. It will transform the city centre, bringing Little Germany in from the cold and improving links between the lower and upper parts of the town.

Fortunately a possible lifesaver has appeared in the shape of development company Stannifer which is currently in negotiations with the company behind the Broadway development plans. And a revised planning application is set to be presented to the Council.

This has become a race against time. Let us hope that the development partnership, the local authority and the European funding body can work together to fast-track the scheme so that £6 million road funding can be secured.