Paul Parker reports on the success of Action for Business Ltd which has come a long way since it was launched eight years ago.

IT IS TEN years since a group of people from Manningham got together to lay the foundations of what is now the thriving Carlisle Business Centre.

The group, which first met in 1990, was fed up with the lack of support for business for the community in the Manningham and Girlington areas of Bradford.

Two years later Action for Business Limited (ABL) was born and in 1996 the business centre opened. It is now one of the best-used managed work space, conference and community buildings in the city.

ABL sprung from the work of the Government-backed Inner Cities Task Force whose Bradford deputy leader was Gurdev Dahele who is now chief executive of the community company.

He said: "Research in the local community showed there was a need for a community-led organisation to run a business and community centre and, in partnership with Bradford Council, the £3.9 million was found to build and fit out the centre."

He was rewarded for his services to regeneration in the 1996 Honours List with an MBE.

When the centre was opened in Carlisle Road, the Manningham area was seen as a "no-go" area by some people. But ABL proved them wrong and it now holds up to 170 events and sees 3,000 visitors come through the doors each month. Some 170 people work for the 50 businesses in the centre and there is a waiting list for the 22 offices and 40 workshops it houses.

The centre was visited by the Prince of Wales before it was officially opened by the Duke of Gloucester in 1996. It has had visits from other notables in its time including recently the former Minister for the Regions, Richard Caborn and former Industry Minister John Battle.

ABL, which keeps in touch with local people through a series of monthly community lunches, was one of the groups involved in the drawing up of the Manningham\Girlington SRB bid for the Government Office and which started regenerating the area last September with £9.7 million.

One of a raft of successful projects which have been managed by ABL includes the Worksearch project which was funded by Bradford TEC and lasted for 15 months. Now it is to set up an Employment Resource Centre which is part of the SRB programme.

ABL and other organisations in a consortium have linked with Business Link Bradford & District to develop the Asian Business Development Programme.

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