THIS week Bradford emerged as the most improved UK city in a survey carried out by PwC.

The city’s improvement has been driven by jobs, workforce skills and work-life balance.

Despite some scepticism from some of our readers, the report is nevertheless a welcome shot in the arm for the district. It never hurts to receive some positive national publicity.

The annual Good Growth for Cities report aims to show there is more to economic well-being than just GDP (a measure which reveals Bradford to be the third largest economy in Yorkshire, behind Leeds and Sheffield).

Instead it rates cities on a range of statistics including jobs, health, income and skills, work-life balance, house-affordability, travel-to-work times, income equality, business start-ups and environment.

On the latter, Bradford still has some way to go with efforts to clean-up one of the city’s major routes hitting a snag.

A planning application to demolish the New Inn pub, in Manchester Road, and replace it with flats has been turned down. Officials criticised the size of the apartments and concerns over parking.

Although the Council has received an alternative planning application for light industrial units it seems as though this crumbling eye-sore will remain a blot on the landscape for a while yet.

That’s a shame when it sits in such a prominent position on one of the major arteries feeding the city centre. Thousands of cars drive past every day.

The dilapidated New Inn certainly doesn’t look like the sort of building you would expect to see in the UK’s most improved city.