1,000-home city-centre neighbourhood in Bradford gets green light
Plans for a new 1,000-home city-centre neighbourhood in Bradford have been given the green light.
Bradford City Village, which is being delivered by Bradford Council and ECF, a partnership between Homes England, L&G and Muse, will be built across the ‘Top of Town’ area of the city, which includes the Oastler, Kirkgate and Chain Street locations.
This new community will create up to 1,000 modern, energy-efficient homes, including a mix of affordable and private rented tenures, and will also introduce new opportunities for retail, leisure and business spaces.
The neighbourhood, set out as one of seven ‘game-changing’ regeneration projects as part of the Council’s 10-year growth plan, aims to establish a new city centre residential offer to rival other major cities. It also supports the government’s ambitions to improve residential housing density in city centres, as set out in its Northern Growth Strategy 2026.
A detailed planning application for Phase One has been approved, which will deliver:
- 33 townhouses on Chain Street, centred around a new community green. Featuring a mix of two and three-bedroom homes designed to suit a range of household sizes and needs, each with a designated parking spaces.
- A further 64 two and three-bedroom townhouses on the northern Oastler site, arranged around a series of courtyards and green spaces, each with designated parking space.
- Supporting infrastructure, including safer roads, landscaped public spaces and active travel routes that promote walking and cycling to help create a sustainable community with health and wellbeing at its heart.
Bradford-based affordable housing provider, Incommunities, has been selected as ECF’s preferred funding partner to deliver the first phase of townhouses for sale and rent, subject to a final legal agreement.
Outline plans have also been approved for the wider regeneration, which will include more than 300 apartments on the southern half of the Oastler site, alongside approximately 400 apartments at Kirkgate. Demolition of the former Oastler Shopping Centre, which closed permanently in June 2025, is expected to begin later this year.
The 1970s built Kirkgate Shopping Centre will also be taken down to make way for future phases of the transformative regeneration, and it will close later this year ahead of demolition beginning towards the end of 2026.
The City Village scheme will also create new public space, including three landscaped green spaces, which will complement recently completed improvements as part of the multi-million-pound Bradford City Centre pedestrianisation.
A detailed planning application for phase two of City Village will be submitted later this year.
Over the last 18 months, ECF has worked with Bradford Council to develop the plans, following extensive public consultation and engagement with hundreds of local people.
Bradford City Village has already secured major inward investment, including £13.1million in-principle funding from the West Yorkshire Combined Authority, a key partner helping to deliver the neighbourhood, alongside £30million of government funding via Homes England.
City Village is one of fifteen places identified in the Strategic Place Partnership between the West Yorkshire Combined Authority (WYCA) and Homes England, which aims to unlock ambitious, complex residential regeneration and boost the delivery of thousands more homes.
Source: Showhouse
