The leader of a free seminar aimed at helping save the high street said she was “gutted” after not one retailer turned up to the Bradford session.

A handful of industry professionals who had come along to advise retailers sat around one table at the Bradford Hilton last night as Kate Hardcastle, of Insight with Passion, ran through her presentation.

“I’m sat here with such frustration at how retailers are knocking back these opportunities,” she said.

The company is offering a series of free workshops in towns and cities across the North of England, of which the worst hit by problems in the high street, she said, was Bradford.

She said she believed as many as one in four of its shops are now standing empty.

Insight with Passion conducted a mystery shopper survey in the city centre, finding not one shop exterior, or interior, to be attractive, the presentation revealed.

Mrs Hardcastle said there was hope for retailers in the city and the research found about three quarters of shop staff in Bradford were polite, with a similar figure judged to have good product knowledge.

With the help on offer at the seminar, from the Charity Angels organisation, a retail operations specialist and an accountant, she said she was “gutted” at the turnout.

She said: “What I’m devastated about, of all the regions we do, Bradford is the worst hit statistically and one where we have probably put the most footsoldiers, going around speaking to retailers and it just feels like head in the sand.

“Something’s stopped them all coming and have they gone, ‘is it too late?’. It isn’t.”

She said the Council had been invited to be part of the seminar but was told Insight with Passion’s work was something it felt it was already doing.

The Bradford Chamber of Trade and Invest in Bradford had also been invited but were not represented at the session, she said.

Closing the event, to a room of empty tables, she said: “If we all fold our arms and wait I don’t know if it’ll be too late for this place, I really don’t.”

For more information visit insight withpassion.co.uk.