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Dear all
Happy New Year! We hope that 2018 will be happy and prosperous for you, your organisations and the many communities we work alongside and serve across the Bradford District.
Bradford made a lot of progress in 2017, despite an increasingly tough financial position in the public sector. We ended the year on a high with the news that analysis of all large U.K. cities by Barclays Bank shows that Bradford is the best place to start a business. This reflects our entrepreneurial culture, supportive business to business environment and a local authority that works hard to support new businesses. 2017 also saw our business and employment base continue to grow and heightened levels of interest in investing in Bradford. We were particularly pleased with the news in September that the NEC would invest in and operate the former Odeon Cinema as a live music venue from 2020.
We were also pleased to see so many people backing Bradford’s campaign to be a stop on Northern Powerhouse Rail. We’re all keen to see it as a priority for Transport for the North. Great leadership has been shown on this issue by the Chamber of Commerce and many businesses across the District. We must collectively continue to press the case for a high speed city centre station for Bradford in 2018 as it would be a very significant spur to accelerated growth in our economy.
We know there will be challenges in the coming year but also opportunities which we must seize. Early March will see the launch of the economic growth strategy for the Bradford District to business and investor audiences here and in London. Shortly after that, Bradford will host the annual tourism business conference for Yorkshire - Y18 - giving us a great opportunity to showcase all that our District has to offer. At the beginning of May the Tour de Yorkshire will return bringing hundreds of thousands of spectators to cheer the world's elite cyclists as they tackle the cobbles of Haworth Main Street and an uphill finish in the heart of Yorkshire at the iconic Cow and Calf rocks.
As well as our usual wide ranging programme of cultural events Bradford will play its part this summer in the 'Great Exhibition of the North' hosting a series of events celebrating the creativity and ingenuity of the North of England. In the autumn Bradford businesses will stage a festival of manufacturing, bringing businesses, educators and young people together to better understand the remarkable abiding strength of manufacturing in our economy and the skilled workforce it requires if it is to grow further.
It was great to see improvements across the District in levels of educational attainment in 2017. We will redouble our efforts in partnership with the school community in 2018. Everyone can play a part and we want to invite you to sign up to our Education Covenant if you haven’t already. We welcome the appointment by government of Anne Marie Canning as chair of Bradford's opportunity area programme, whose priority is to increase social mobility through education. We look forward to working with Anne Marie.
And finally our partnership work in neighbourhoods and with communities will be vital in 2018. Strong, resilient and caring communities are the bedrock of what makes for a good life in this District. We know that the local authority is only one player in this work. We'd like to thank everyone who contributes to making the Bradford District a great place. Let's have a good 2018!
Best Wishes
Cllr Susan Hinchcliffe, Leader CBMDC Kersten England, Chief Executive CBMDC
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