Date Posted: 11 November 2010
Down to London in the rain yesterday but well worth the trip for lots of reasons – and an added bonus was using Grand Central’s direct route from Bradford. Whilst it may wind its way through Yorkshire, picking up at various ‘interesting’ locations (I’ll come back to that) it races down from Doncaster to make it an alternative choice to East Coast Rail – and competition is always good….
Grand Central were part of a delegation led by the Invest in Bradford team as they took the message to the City of London. Financial Leeds member Pinsent Masons hosted the event at their head office, and we also helped provide some of the attendees through our London network.
The message given was a clear vision of how Bradford is regenerating its city centre and university estates to create something distinctive and very much of the 21st Century. I was most captured by the City centre park and its ability to transform into an open air venue on a scale with St Mark’s Square in Venice (and when did you last hear of anywhere in West Yorkshire being compared to Venice?)
In my view, the biggest catalyst would be a government civil service move to the area. The value proposition, the quality workforce and the communications network makes Bradford a compelling case – if the government would finally get real about structural cost saving in the civil service.
Finally – has anyone been to Wakefield Kirkgate station? At 10:30 pm? After reading on Wikipedia about its haunted underpass? When you are the only one getting off and the only car in the car park? I had to ring home and keep chatting whilst bravely scuttling from the train to the car. The team here think I am an arch wimp but they weren’t there and they didn’t hear the plaintiff cries of the Victorian woman in black coming from the subway between platforms 1 and 2. Next time I’m taking a friend. Or staying on until Bradford!
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