The district’s regeneration chief has criticised more than a decade of stagnation in plans to revive Bradford’s historic wool merchants’ quarter.

Councillor Dave Green, Bradford Council’s executive member for regeneration, claimed proposals to create a self-contained village in Little Germany had “lost momentum” and needed to be put back on track.

He said: “We started bringing in private and public money to improve the environment and bring some of the mills into use.

“But the delivery in Little Germany stalled and really, nothing has happened there since.

“We now need to look again at the possibilities and see what we can do to improve Little Germany in the fairly near future.”

Prince Charles described Little Germany as “full of potential” in 1999 when it was designated one of only two areas gaining recognition from his charity, the Urban Villages Forum. It was supposed to rank alongside Birmingham’s Jewellery Quarter and riverside developments in places like Manchester as an area for people to live, work and shop, said Coun Green.

However, he said little had happened since development of the city centre was put into the hands of Bradford Centre Regeneration (BCR).

Coun Green said it was now time to focus again on reviving Little Germany as a priority following the scrapping of BCR last year.

He said: “When BCR was established, the Little Germany area was just subsumed into the city centre masterplan and it therefore lost its status as an independent and individual area.

“We had started to get people who wanted to develop buildings for apartments and there is a large number there now. But the next stage was to encourage business, retail and leisure, so it would become a self-contained village and that has not happened.

“If you go around Little Germany now, it is better than it was 15 years ago but it is nothing like it could have been if the momentum had been kept up.”

He said: “Given the Council’s resources, we will not be able to revise the whole thing but we need to look again at the possibilities of what can be done there.”

Alan Hall, chairman of Bradford Civic Society, said: “I think Little Germany is a gem and it needs to be developed in a way that Saltaire was.

“That was pretty down at heel 20 years ago – the mill was going to be demolished – but then one businessman developed the mill, and that drew in other businesses until you got what you have there now, a flourishing area.”

However, he added: “I’m not sure the Council in the current climate is in a position to be able to do much. The only way that Little Germany’s regeneration is going to go ahead is by people who live and work there getting together to decide what they want there.”