Artist Tanya Vital welcomes you to Bradford, the jewel in the crown of the Pennines

Culture has always played a significant role in our District’s history and our arms of internationalism reach far and wide. Bradford is one of the youngest cities in Europe and yet, we have always had a prominent presence. Our community-led disposition has meant we have always been fighting to make the world around us a better place for all – from our radical roots in the Chartist Movement to the birthplace of what we now call the Labour Party.

Once the King of Wool, we are nationally and internationally famous for our local attractions. We’re the home of the powerful literary collection at the Brontë Society and the Parsonage Museum; we lovingly preserve some of the most iconic, game-changing moments in film history at the National Science and Media Museum and proudly display our very own miniature Moorish castle, the Alhambra Theatre. It's a city that has continuously been in the thralls of rebirth and reinvention and I’m proud that the very heart of our home is reinventing itself once again.'

Being two thirds rural, Bradford District is home to breathtaking landscapes, its industrial heritage juxtaposed with soft rolling hills. Imposing historical buildings and mills nestle amongst the canals and winding rivers. The steam railways of Keighley and Worth Valley, made famous in the movie The Railway Children, still draw in crowds.

It is one of the few places in the world to have not one, but two UNESCO designations; Saltaire industrial village is a UNESCO world heritage site and, as the world’s first City of Film, we are part of the UNESCO Creative Cities network.

Bradford has a staggering 2,287 listed buildings, including several Grade I treasures such as the fabulous Bradford City Hall, Saltaire Congressional Church, East Riddlesden Hall, Bolling Hall, which gets its first nod in the Doomsday book, and Bradford Cathedral, which sits atop an eighth-century medieval site of worship.

In a year when public spaces have never been more important, we were a District well prepared, with 36 public parks, ten of which sit proudly on the Historic England register of Parks and Gardens of Special Historic Interest in England. Seven of them achieved Green Flag Award status in 2018.

Meanwhile, City of Bradford Metropolitan District Council directly manages several of the District’s most important cultural assets including Bradford Theatres, which runs the Alhambra, St George’s Hall and the King’s Hall in Ilkley, and the Museums and Galleries at Cartwright Hall, Bolling Hall, Cliffe Castle and Bradford Industrial Museum.

Alongside all this, many of our artists have national and international profiles. The District has an independent cultural scene that continues to innovate and excite. Most of our cultural organisations are small or micro businesses. More than 40% of our workers in arts, culture and heritage are freelance or sole traders compared with a UK average of 33%.

These creative people are the lifeblood of our sector. They are involved in everything from artist and community-led projects such as Keighley Creative and the newly renovated South Square to cutting-edge music and visual arts projects such as Fuse Arts Space.

They turn up in festivals, from the Tech Styles International hip hop festival to the Bradford Fringe Festival and the much adored Bingley Weekender. These creative people are the lifeblood of our cultural scene. They are behind heritage projects, from Ilkley Manor House to the Keighley Bus Museum to the Peace Museum.

And they are at the heart of many extraordinary community projects with culture at their core like Bradford Community Broadcasting, BIASAN (the Bradford Immigration and Asylum Seekers Support and Advice Network) Project 6 and WomenZone.

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Madani Younis, former director of Bradford's Freedom Studios and now Chief Executive Producer of The Shed in Manhattan sums up the District's potential; 'Post-war immigration into Bradford represents what a city can become. Its cultural influences play out in the city’s streets every day. You hear it in the languages that reverberate around those streets. In the food that we eat and the clothes that we wear and the stories that are told. That city for me is the best of who we are as a country. And that is not said enough. That city represents the potential of what our country is and can be.'