Bradford: ‘We have our swagger back’ 

One year of investment and attention, however significant, is not enough on its own. The real challenge is how momentum translates into something lasting – particularly for individual creatives, freelancers, communities and small organisations. This is where The Bradford Way comes in. 

Long before being City of Culture, Bradford had the foundations for a strong cultural future: a young population, deep diversity, distinctive neighbourhoods and a long tradition of independent, DIY creativity. What had been missing was not talent or ambition, but the joined-up infrastructure needed to support people to sustain creative lives over time. 

What is The Bradford Way?

The Bradford Way has been a major Arts Council England Place Partnership programme. Alongside delivering practical support, it has developed an ethos – a way of working focused on making cultural support across the Bradford District clearer, more connected and more accessible.

As both this and the City of Culture funding come to an end, the question remains simple but vital: how do we ensure that anyone who wants to become a creative in Bradford is supported to do so?

The Bradford Way brings together four partners: Bradford Producing Hub, The Leap, the Cultural Voice Forum and Bradford Council’s Culture, Policy and Events Team. Each has a distinct role. Their combined value lies not in new structures, but in how they work together – sharing intelligence, aligning activity and creating clearer pathways for creatives, freelancers and communities. 

City of Culture 2025 acted as an accelerator. It increased participation, visitors, visibility and confidence across the district. It also brought longstanding challenges into sharper focus – particularly for freelancers and grassroots organisations – that must be addressed if progress is to be sustained once the spotlight moves on. The Bradford Way is part of that response.

What this looks like in practice 

Bradford Producing Hub focuses on skills, capacity and professional development for all creatives, offering production training, mentoring, marketing and business support, as well as guidance to strengthen funding applications. Its programmes are free and open, recognising the financial pressures many freelancers face. Ongoing analysis of sector needs helps identify where support is effective and where gaps remain. 

The Cultural Voice Forum provides a collective space for creatives to connect, shape priorities and influence decision-making. Over the past year it has widened participation through a new access policy, visual venue guides and six specialist subnetworks reflecting lived experience across the district, including Black-led arts and neurodivergent creatives. Its move towards Community Interest Company status is about securing a stable, community-led cultural voice beyond 2025.

The Leap supports community-led culture and neighbourhood creativity. Through initiatives such as the Your Way Awards, it has backed work rooted in communities often overlooked by traditional funding. Projects including SENDiVERSE – co-created with families of children with SEND – and the Leeds Road Festival show how culture grows when it is shaped locally. These networks are designed to endure.

Bradford Council’s culture team has supported training, practical toolkits, sustainability in culture, a grants programme and 22 community-led festivals across the district – from Words on the Street with the Brontë Society to Windrush Generations celebrations. Alongside funding, the team has provided hands-on guidance, offering a first route into cultural activity and building confidence in neighbourhoods that have often felt overlooked.

The Bradford Way connects all this, making it easier for people to find their way through the system and feel part of Bradford’s creative sector.

Why connection matters 

One of the long-standing challenges in Bradford’s cultural sector has been fragmentation. Freelancers and small organisations often rely on informal networks and personal knowledge to access support. That can work – but it also excludes people, reinforces inequality and places pressure on individuals who are already stretched.

Through The Bradford Way, partners are sharing information about who they reach, where people fall between systems and how referral pathways can reduce dead ends, duplication and wasted effort. It also enables honest conversation about what is and isn’t working – a quality that feels deeply characteristic of Bradford.

Looking ahead 

This year, in March, our conference – Connecting Culture: The Bradford Way – will provide a moment of reflection and forward planning, looking beyond City of Culture and current funding.

It will bring together creatives, cultural organisations, community leaders and funders to explore how joined-up cultural infrastructure can support sustainable creative practice across the district. It will feature case studies from individuals who have been supported through The Bradford Way, sharing practical experience and stories, alongside wider discussion about the realities of freelance life and community-led culture. 

For Bradford, the task now is clear: to turn a remarkable year into lasting cultural infrastructure. The Bradford Way is not a single organisation or project, but an ethos and way of working. Our agreed vision is to ensure every creative, freelancer and community in Bradford has clear, connected pathways to the support, skills and opportunities they need to sustain creative practice. Working alongside the District’s City of Culture legacy plans, out focus will be on embedding collaboration and developing pathways that work in practice – so that anyone who wants to be a creative sees Bradford as a first choice.

For the first time in a long while, Bradford feels confident about its cultural direction. We have our swagger back. The work now is to get the investment to make sure we don’t lose what has been started.