'So many memories are going with the Kirkgate Centre'

Half a century after it opened, the shutters are set to come down on Bradford's Kirkgate Shopping Centre. As the city bids farewell to the brutalist building - set to be demolished to make way for 1,000 new homes - shoppers have been sharing their memories from across the years.

Kevin Hurd, 40, and his mum Erica, 67, from Bradford, have come down to the centre the day before it closes to take pictures and reminisce.

Erica remembers it being built in 1973, when the previous Victorian market, which had been standing on the same site for 100 years, was knocked down.

"They were using tonnes of concrete. I thought 'that's amazing'," she says.

"I've been crying," she says. "We spent many a happy time in here when we were teens. There were so many nice shops. And Christmas, you remember, Kevin?"

Kevin says he too has many happy memories here.

"Christmas was always special, because they decorated the entire centre," he says.

"[It was] lovely as a kid coming in, and just the lights, the enjoyment, the whole atmosphere was welcoming, and now it's just it's like a sinking ship.

"So many memories are going with it - how many people have passed through these doors, the stories?"

Martin Bairstow, 63, has also popped down for one last look around.

"I've got a lot of memories here as a kid, because when it first opened I was only 10, so a lot of childhood memories as well," he says.

"It's sad to see it as it is now. We thought we'd just come in for one last look around, even though there's nothing open, just for old times' sake."

The centre is being demolished to make way for City Village - a 1,000-home regeneration project being delivered by Bradford Council in partnership with ECF, which has already secured funding from the West Yorkshire Combined Authority and Homes England

Martin says he disagrees with the reasoning behind the move.

"I don't think you need a lot of housing in town, I think we need more shops in town than houses," he says.

"I think it should have been left as it were, because there is nothing wrong with the building - it's a good building."

Gary Metcalfe, who is in his 60s, retired from the council seven years ago and lives on the outskirts of Bradford.

He is concerned that demolishing the market could leave Bradford with another "hole" – referring to the time between 2004 and 2014 when the building site that became the Broadway Shopping Centre was left empty and derelict.

"No city can provide for three shopping centres. We should never have built Broadway, we should have invested, and certainly the council shouldn't have been buying it, that's not what the council is there for," he says.

Bradford Council purchased the Kirkgate Centre for £15.5m in 2022.

"I remember the previous Kirkgate Market. They should never have pulled it down.

"We wanted modernity back then, and that's the problem, and we shouldn't have done.

"I can't believe we're pulling this down. It's going to cost a fortune - an absolute fortune just to pull it down and of course - where's the funding for the housing estate? The country's bust and broke, so no chance."

Jonny Noble, chief executive of Bradford BID, has higher hopes for the City Village development.

He believes "the time has come" to say goodbye to the Kirkgate.

"Since the Broadway, the city centre needed to shrink. We had too much not fit-for-purpose retail up at the top of town and that naturally now becoming residential makes sense," he says.

While he will "shed no tears" for the loss of the architecture – a Brutalist building designed by John Brunton & Partners – he says its closure is "bittersweet" and admits he too has happy memories there.

"There was a shop called Tandy [and] because I used to do a bit of DJing I'd go get my leads and my bits and pieces from Tandy and then, you know, messing about as a kid, as you do - try to get a chase off the security guards.

"I remember clearly there was a waterfall in the centre, pretty much where the lifts are now, that cascaded down from the ceiling into like a wishing well at the bottom.

"People used to throw coins into the wishing well and we would help ourselves to the coins out of the wishing well," he says.

While for some it is just the memories that will be lost, for Catherine Croft, director of the Twentieth Century Society, the architecture will be the biggest loss.

She says the Kirkgate Centre is an "essential part of the history of Bradford".

"They're big and bold and sculptural and confident buildings. And they're the sort of buildings that are really just coming back into fashion nowadays," she says.

The building was designed by John Brunton & Partners, an architecture firm based in Bradford and Leeds that also designed the long-gone Bradford and Bingley building and High Point.

High Point, the former headquarters of the Huddersfield and Bradford Building Society, was named the best Brutalist building in the country by The Telegraph earlier this year.

Built at a time when IRA terrorist attacks were a constant threat, High Point was built to be bomb-proof, and is now home to 87 flats as part of a £12m regeneration scheme.

Croft says it's an example of where these buildings have been "overlooked for many years" and then had a second life.

"Generally people are kind of rediscovering Brutalist architecture," she says.

"Brutalism for a long time was thought to be a difficult style and a style that was particularly hard to adapt. But lots of people have got beyond that now. And I think it is becoming really kind of cool again," she says.

"There are lots of good examples of councils refurbishing Brutalist buildings, like Preston Bus Garage and the market in Huddersfield, Queensgate Market.

"It's a real pity that Kirkgate is going, and it's kind of sad that it's almost made it to the period when people are looking fresh at these sorts of buildings, but not quite.

"I'm really sad that it's going," she says.

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