It’s January 2030 and how have external perceptions of Bradford changed? More importantly is there a palpable sense of greater community cohesion and local ‘pride in place’.
Bradford has boldly stepped into the national spotlight as U.K. City of Culture for 2025, though this is only part of wider ambitions to evolve the ‘look and feel’ of the City and wider Borough. As part of the Bradford diaspora and an interested observer, I am intrigued to see what the longer-term impacts of these investments and changes might be as part of Bradford’s ‘place branding journey.’
Branding rooted in place
Although place branding has evolved greatly as a discipline over recent decades, there is still common confusion about what it is -and what it is not. As so many articles on place branding feel it necessary to state from the outset, place branding is about much more than creating a strapline or designing a logo or graphic house style.
Bradford as U.K. City of Culture 2025 has a bright logo and colour pallet created to be used by partners and for activities to mark participation in the year. Although the brief for this visual identity included contributing to how the Year of Culture changes the way Bradford is perceived externally, it did not seek a comprehensive new narrative or values that might guide communication beyond 2025.
When in a location like Bradford, the need or intent is to use place branding in a way that embeds it as part of the evolution of the place, it is especially important to distinguish it from place promotion or marketing and recognise that place branding has the potential to more fully integrate the promotion and development of a place.
One approach to understanding how place branding is ‘rooted in place’ is the ICON model that identifies how good practice in place branding should be integrated, contextualised, organic, and new. We will use this model here in assessing Bradford’s evolving place brand and identity.
Bradford’s evolving ‘look’ and ‘feel’
Like many towns and cities, Bradford’s place branding is an ongoing journey. This is a journey that is at a crucial juncture as key phases in enhancing the ‘look’ of its built environment and ‘feel’ of its cultural distinctiveness are reached. The launch of Bradford as U.K. City of Culture for 2025 provides an opportunity to celebrate these improvements, showcase Bradford’s identity and build its brand for the future.
The following current strategies and plans have key roles key in shaping the evolving ‘look’ and ‘feel’ of Bradford’s identity and demonstrate the breadth of what needs to be considered. A crucial part of the place branding challenge is providing clarity about how these plans inter-relate. All these documents guide work that is ongoing and that will extend beyond Bradford’s year as City of Culture. They are primarily led by the City of Bradford Metropolitan Borough Council (CBMBC).
- Bradford City Plan Prospectus (CBMBC, 2015)
- Keighley Town Investment Plan (CBMBC, 2021a)
- Shipley Town Investment Plan (CBMBC, 2021b)
- Culture is our plan -A cultural strategy for Bradford District 2021–2023 (BCPP, 2021)
- The Heritage Action Plan for Bradford District 2022-2031 (CBMBC, 2022)
The first three of these documents focus largely on the proposed physical transformation or ‘look’ of Bradford’s city centre and two of the larger constituent towns in the District.
The Bradford City Plan Prospectus focuses on the diverse use of the city centre for ‘dynamic business’, ‘learning’, ‘urban living’, as a ‘transport hub’ and as a ‘destination & experience’.
The Keighley and Shipley Town Investment Plans were produced as a requirement to guide the spending of millions of pounds Government funding allocated through the Towns Fund for a five-year period. In common with similar Towns Fund-inspired plans nationally, the plans have a strong focus on delivering major capital projects.
The Cultural Strategy is the key strategy driving ‘softer’ district-wide cultural development including the then proposal to bid to be the designated U.K. City of Culture in 2025.
The Heritage Action Plan makes the distinction of defining Heritage as “anything from the past that you value and want to pass on to future generations.” Written after the award of City of Culture status, its first defined action is to “ensure heritage is at heart of BD252.
It is of course, also timely to focus on the huge opportunity presented by the Bradford 2025 City of Culture designation to up-date Bradford’s image, including as part of a more coherent approach to place branding.
Restoration of a city symbol
Perhaps the city centre physical regeneration project with the greatest symbolism, and with a cross-over into the city’s cultural development and heritage conservation, is the restoration of the magnificent, art deco former Bradford Odeon. When it originally opened in 1930, it was the largest cinema outside of London and combined an auditorium, a ballroom and a restaurant.
The late 1960s saw the auditorium split in to three, while the ballroom closed. In 2000, the Odeon suffered the fate of many city centre, cinemas, as the opening of an out-of-town multi-plex forced its doors to shut.
There then followed what was both a very sorry and inspiring chapter in the building’s story when it sat empty and under threat of redevelopment. Meanwhile Bradford’s community and box-office stars, rallied and campaigned to save the iconic building. In 2013 Bradford Council bought the building for a nominal £1.
In 2014 the rights to redevelop the building were awarded to a specially-formed, local not-for-profit organisation, Bradford Live. Three years later a partnership was formed with NEC Group, before work to restore the building finally got underway in 2021.
Twenty-four years after its doors closed, the newly named Bradford Live, is physically ready re-open for new generations of audiences to enjoy live performances. In another twist to its story though, the NEC withdrew from its contract to run the building in September and as the City of Culture gets underway, Bradford Live’s doors remain closed.
Integrated approach
Our brief assessment of the integrated nature of the evolving approach to place branding in Bradford using the ICON model, focuses on collaboration between agencies, strategies and programmes spanning physical regeneration and cultural development.
Looking at the Bradford City Plan Prospectus’ focus on ‘destination & experience’, it is encouraging to see recognition in the vision statement of the differing needs of residents and visitors. There is also specific mention of the importance of investment in culture.
The Keighley and Shipley Town Investment Plans make passing mention of creating a place to be ‘proud of’ and showcasing a sense of community and distinctiveness. The Keighley Plan makes specific mention of the requirements of creative industries and visitors that might be served by investment in culture and heritage. Likewise, in the Shipley Plan, there is a specific objective for growing Shipley and the Saltaire World Heritage Site as a “unique creative, cultural and leisure destination and growing tourism and access.”
Looking at the references in the Cultural Strategy and Heritage Plan to integrating activity with planning for physical regeneration, there are significant statements about an integrated approach in both. The Cultural Strategy includes a specific target of “making the most of what we have by restoring old buildings, making our high streets better, and having new ideas for empty spaces”. The Heritage Plan includes a cross-over objective to help make the most of heritage in ongoing and planned regeneration schemes, as well as using it to create distinctive place making and marketing.
Contextualised within communities
Reflections here reflect on the balance being achieved between meeting the needs of local residents and the external profile necessitated by the U.K. City of Culture status.
The Heritage Action Plan summarises recent survey findings, showing that only half (51%) of residents agree that culture in Bradford ‘represents me and my life’; the proportion is even lower for under 19’s (36%). Similarly, less than half (42%) agree that they are satisfied with the range of cultural activities near to where they live; again, much lower for under 19s (21%).
Part of the proposed actions in the Heritage Plan focus engaging with key stakeholder groups including schools, independent heritage organisations and what is referred to as “grassroots heritage”. Such an approach will be delivered by ambitions focused on involving local people in sharing Bradford’s culture and telling their own story, including that: “Bradford will know itself better by sharing the history of the city and the diversity of its residents to bring communities together and celebrate differences.”
With the Award of City of Culture status, suddenly the rhetoric switched from a largely local focus to one of also raising Bradford’s national profile. The local briefings talked of extended ambitions to “change perceptions of Bradford in the UK and around the world”.
Organic evolution
The story of how ‘Bradford Live’ is the legacy of an innovative public campaign is effectively a strong symbol of the acceptance of the organic, evolution of Bradford’s brand.
The opportunity for the organic is written into the Cultural Strategy’s stated vision that has a very strong emphasis on benefitting residents, as well as integrating art, culture and heritage, and realising new ideas: “Bradford will offer a new definition of art, culture and heritage that reimagines our District as a place that is knowingly different and radically alternative.”
The approach can also be considered ‘organic’ because Bradford does not currently have a defined place branding approach or strategy. Instead, it has it has a whole series of largely capital-based placemaking projects with the potential to change perceptions, 10 year cultural and heritage strategies embedded in the local community, and the current Year of Culture identity with the potential to improve local and national perceptions.
As with so many place branding exercises focused on the needs of a particular organisation, programme or outcome, the current challenge is combining a current focus on the “essence of Bradford 2025”, as part of a wider narrative about the longer-term and broader identity of an area.
New thinking
There is a push for a new outlook for how Bradford presents itself that comes from recognition in documents such as the area-wide Cultural Strategy that the city’s residents have been let-down by low levels of institutional investment that have created inequalities: “We have historically underperformed in attracting national investment –something we are determined to reverse. Right now, we lag behind other places of similar size and that has led to stark inequalities in cultural access too.”
There was a strong aspiration expressed in the brief for visual identity refresh for the City of Culture 2025 to change the city’s image: “Bradford has won itself the most incredible opportunity to flick the switch on how it’s seen. To change that for good, from a place that’s been described by outsiders as broken, dangerous, divided and scary to one that is seen for what it really is –bold, different and connected”.
Part of the ambitions of the Cultural Strategy is that resident involvement will help communicate authentically as people in Bradford tell their “own story by using art, culture and heritage to help tell the world new stories about our incredible people and places in a way that both will create improvements for residents and enable people from elsewhere in the UK to view Bradford differently”.
A stage in Bradford’s place branding journey
The national status and activities during Bradford’s year as U.K. City of Culture will undoubtedly attract attention and hopefully contribute greatly to an emerging new narrative about the city and surrounding borough. It is important though to remember that this is a stage in Bradford’s place branding journey that involves the wider and longer-term, transformation of its look, feel and identity. This is important in managing some expectations during the Year of Culture as well as capturing learning and maintaining momentum in strengthening ‘Brand Bradford’ for five years hence and beyond.
