Government plans to introduce US-style financing for regeneration projects could kickstart the stalled Westfield retail site, according to a Bradford property entrepreneur.

As part of its localism agenda and shake-up of public financing, the Coalition has promised to legislate for Tax Incentive Finance schemes to help finance infrastructure and regeneration projects.

Developer Andrew Mason, whose Newmason business is based at the award-winning Victoria Mills conversion in Shipley, believes TIF schemes could provide the key to reviving the £320m scheme on Broadway, now a temporary urban park.

He has urged city leaders to look at establishing a TIF scheme as a means of pushing the Westfield development forward.

In the United States, TIFs have been used for more than 40 years to provide incremental local tax revenues from a defined zone to support infrastructure funding.

Just how TIFs would work in the UK are still being considered by ministers, but the aim is to allow local authorities to borrow against predicted growth in their locally-raised business rates.

According to the Treasury, councils will be able to use that borrowing to fund infrastructure and other capital projects, which will support locally driven economic development and growth.

The Government is working with local authorities to devise UK TIFs – and so far has given no timescale for the introduction of primary legislation to bring them into force.

The Scottish government is already running pilot TIFs in Edinburgh and Glasgow, which Bradford Council regeneration officials are studying.

Mr Mason said: “I think TIFs could provide an important lever to get the Westfield project going. In fact, they could be the key.

“Something is needed to kickstart this scheme and borrowing against future tax income could be the way forward.”

Bradford Council leader Ian Greenwood said the authority would consider all potential options under proposed new public funding policies, which could involve overcoming various technical issues.