The new boss of Bradford's biggest-ever regeneration scheme has spoken of his delight at returning to his roots.

Steve Hartley, chief executive of the New Deal for Communities scheme, is moving back to the Bradford district after a 20-year gap.

The ex-Bradford Grammar School pupil remembers visiting his grandmother, Marjorie Atherton, in West Bowling. His new job is to oversee regeneration in the same area.

Under the New Deal, £50 million of Government cash is set to be pumped into the Park Lane, Marshfields and West Bowling areas over a ten-year period.

"It's an area I know, because my mum was brought up in Parkside Road in West Bowling and my Nan who died in February, lived there all her life," Mr Hartley said. "She used to attend Muff Field Chapel and I was actually at her funeral on the day they were shortlisting for this job. It feels like it's come full circle."

Mr Hartley, 39, will be moving from his current home in Ladbroke Grove, London, to Bradford with wife Angela and children Alice, five, Matilda, four, and one-year-old Billy.

His current job is working for an SRB regeneration programme in North Kensington, a deprived area within the prosperous borough of Kensington and Chelsea.

"It's a deprived area, cheek by jowl with some of the most expensive housing in the land," he said. "People are living three streets away from Chris Evans, but they are a family of four in a one-bedroomed council flat."

The problems of deprivation, unemployment and alienation are similar in Bradford, he said.

"I have been involved in similar things before but not on this scale - it's exciting for me, a good opportunity."

The key will be to make sure local people are in the driving seat, he added.

"When you have got this amount of money, professionals come in and if you're not careful people are having regeneration 'done' to them," he said. "They might end up with a nicer house, but they don't feel like it's really made a difference.

"The key will be education and employment, and then making sure that once people are feeling more prosperous, they don't move out of the area. We want this area to be a place people are moving into, not moving out of."

A return to Yorkshire will also be a return to his first love, cricket. Mr Hartley played for Bradford Boys and the second team at Cambridge University.

His grandfather Billy Atherton played football for Park Avenue but he is now considering switching his allegiance - to Bradford City.

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