Both the Government and a major countryside charity want to see London-style housing in other cities to ease the pressure on green-field sites. City Hall Reporter Olwen Vasey describes how Bradford is already "going to town" on city centre developments. But will people move in?

BRADFORD COUNCIL received a top accolade today from a major national countryside preservation body.

The Council for the Preservation of Rural England praises the strides which have been made by the authority in encouraging people to live in the city centre and Keighley's town centre.

Six years ago the Council became the first in Britain to launch a Living Over the Shops scheme where businesses get grants to turn waste space into flats.

In Bradford city centre there are 84 flats and Keighley town centre boasts 109. The number is steadily increasing and authorities across the country have followed Bradford's footsteps.

The praise for the Council comes as the CPRE today launches a hard-hitting report which calls for housing in towns and cities to create vibrant communities.

The CPRE says 70 square miles of green fields are built over every year in Britain and 1,700 people a week leave major cities for market towns and villages in the countryside.

CPRE planning officer Henry Oliver says: "Our neglected towns and cities are suffering from too little new development, not too much. They have space to spare."

He says places must be designed in the towns and cities which people can enjoy and be proud of.

Today chairman of the CPRE West Yorkshire and Yorkshire and Humberside branches Dr Jim Burton said he strongly supported the moves in Bradford to rejuvenate the whole urban area by schemes like the Living above Shops.

He said: "This type of scheme makes cities better to live in and takes the pressure off Green Belt land".

But he said they would not want to see another situation as in Silsden where there are plans to swallow up fields with large numbers of new houses and businesses.

He said: "Silsden is an example of what we don't want to happen."

But he said Leeds and Bradford were trying very hard to promote homes in the city and town centres.

The CPRE's national publication Room To Live claims eight million people could be housed on urban derelict land if it was developed along the lines of traditional London streets and squares.

Blueprint to turn back the clock

Families were jubilant 40 years ago when they packed their bags and left their city centre homes for Buttershaw and other new estates.

Tens of thousands of people in the 1950s swapped their back-to-backs and terraced homes with backyards for the modern houses and green fields they had been denied.

But now the housing clock has turned full circle - and Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott wants people to move in and breathe new life into the streets of Britain's cities. Inner city housing is a main plank in a blueprint being prepared by the Government's Urban Task Force.

With good design and green space they could be made vibrant places, where people could have shops, workplaces, theatres and pubs right on their doorsteps.

The Government believes the move to the towns and cities will stop homes swallowing up the green belt.

Bradford Council, housing associations and developers are leading the way by latching on to the idea of turning its massive, redundant, old city mill buildings into flats. Bradford Council says people are moving into the city centre and enjoying life.

Among schemes are the former Soho Mills in Thornton Road which has been converted into flats while an old mill in Currer Street, Little Germany, has be-come home for dozens of people.

There is a waiting list of about 30 would-be tenants wanting to move into the 41 flats in the £2 million Currer Street scheme.

Catherine McCrinka, housing services manager of the North British Housing Association whi-ch owns the flats, said most occupants were young, single people.

In another scheme, Leeds London Holdings plans to convert Broadgate House in Manor Row into smart flats for single people and couples.

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