Two long-running major development projects in the city centre will come under scrutiny next month as a key Bradford Council committee looks to learn lessons from the past.
The Council’s regeneration and economy scrutiny committee has asked officers to provide a report on the history of the Broadway shopping centre development and the redevelopment of the former Odeon site.
They will also be asked to provide a timeline of key points for both projects, and the authority’s chief executive, Tony Reeves, will be asked to attend to answer questions.
In addition, representatives will be invited from Westfield , the developer behind the £275 million 75-store shopping centre scheme, Langtree, the company which wants to turn the Odeon site into a £40 million scheme of offices, a hotel and apartments, and the Government’s Homes and Communities Agency, which owns the Odeon.
Councillor Andrew Mallinson , chairman of the committee, said it was important councillors were able to scrutinise the projects as the public did not have confidence in either development getting off the ground.
“We want to look at the whole thing for each project, warts and all,” he said. We have clearly learned some lessons in doing the City Park , yet we still have some major sites which are to be developed and we have got to make sure that expertise is not lost.”
On the Westfield development he said: “We need to understand if they have got confidence in the current scheme or will there need to be further alterations, and what the potential timescale would be.”
Of the Odeon, he said members of the committee wanted to ask whether the £1 million which had been spent on maintenance of the building since Yorkshire Forward took ownership in 2003 was a good use of public funds.
“We want to look at the history of the project and how we got to this point, if there are any lessons to be learned from the process, and ultimately how we take this forward.
“It might be that Langtree can’t get sufficient people to sign up to the site and we need to look at a different scheme, but we need to know.”
The Westfield meeting is expected to take place on Thursday, October 11, at 1pm, and the Odeon meeting two weeks later on October 25, also at 1pm.
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