City Park - A park at the heart
“Yikes!”
Bradford is a City in the North of England with ambition that often far outweighs good planning, common sense and available budgets. In an effort for reinvention the city drilled a hole at Centenary Square which surrounds the town hall in the hope of hitting oil, as that failed plan B was put into action, a pool of urine filled water with a park around it was built despite the fact that local residents had raised concerns that a pool could attract Michael Barrymore.
The only other council in history to have implemented a town hall pool scheme is Fraggle Rock even though nearby Sesame street rejected similar plans as being of no economical benefit.
Background of regeneration[edit]
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The Bradford ‘City Park’ was the next ambitious gamble by CBMDC (Confused Bureaucratic Managers Demanding Change) since the Lord Mayor forfeited much of Broadway to the Forster Square Development Partnership after losing a drunken game of poker in 1998.
An attempt at improving the area in 2002 after another difficult game of poker ended in disaster, with only one building being demolished after attempts to flatten the whole centre went drastically wrong.
The Lord Mayor blamed 'swamp gas' from the Tyrls fountain for the explosion, but it was later shown that he had signed away the rights to blow up the city centre to a local explosives company in exchange for a week in a Florida Villa and the voiding of the gambling debt.
The resulting pile of rubble was removed to Leeds road and re-named as The Gatehaus Development at a cost of over £300, cash, and the Lord Mayor got a good telling off.
Aiming for the moon[edit]
In a move which has been celebrated by locals, Broadway was flattened to build the set for the Duncan Jones movie called Moon[1] the Broadway location was chosen specifically as the barren wasteland was easy to adapt to a moon like set and the lack of activity at night prevented disruptions.
In return the movie’s head of special effects produced a number of CGI images of an alternative science fiction reality in Centenary Square where a multi-ethnic utopia existed yet due to an unforeseen anomaly in the space time continuum for some reason burkas did not exist, nor did old people, presumably in the latter case regular assaults had lead to their demise. The CGI had only one purpose, to dupe investors into negative equity purchases.
Scientists have suggested the same anomaly may have been responsible for the Gatehaus [2] advertising hoardings only featuring Asian people, the anomaly then caused such mayhem in the time-space-reality matrix which alters our perception of reality that investors believed that £1000 a month rent was achievable in the wealthy economy of Bradford.
Root cause of decline[edit]
Unfortunately Bradford's economy turned for the worse, yet it was not lack of parking, an increase in crime or lack of choice, but in fact the source of all Bradford's problems was determined after a thorough root cause analysis lasting 53 minutes and 15 seconds to be a lack of trees, water features and shelter for the terminally unemployed.
Birth of a plan[edit]
So concerned were council leaders at the fact the unemployed had to suffer drinking cheap lager at home or taking methadone whilst watching satellite TV that an action plan was formulated so that the unemployed could have their own park, where they could watch the BBC TV screen to be educated whilst consuming whichever vice took their fancy and the cost of the public toilet could be avoided by the use of the local water features. So the ‘City Park’ project was born.
Funding[edit]
The £24 million project was originally going to be paid for by a National Lottery roll over ticket that the Lord Mayor had purchased, unfortunately his number's didn't come in so the shortfall has been funded by pawning council assets at the nearby second hand shops, by taking out a 1035% APR loan from a nearby financial services company and by ruthlessly fining drivers that park in the city centre.
The powers that be forgot to mention that the City Park would cost considerably more than £24 million to be fully realised, that was just the cost of the splishy splashy water feature, a further £58 million was needed to move the law courts from the Tyrls to make way for the 'business forest' which the council hoped would be occupied by enchanted pixies that would magically conjure up jobs. Much like the low life's that frequent the city centre, the council went begging repeatedly to central government for spare change to complete the project, alas no one was convinced by the argument that a water feature would create jobs.
Delayed[edit]
The Council’s strategic director for repeated failure was quoted as saying “The city park is progressing towards the scheduled completion in September, I live in Sheffield it's very nice there you know.” It was just another broken promise.
Safety[edit]
The results of the Council funded 'Risk Assessment and Diversity Targeting Initiative' report from top analysts W.E. Really & T.A. Kedeepiss down South in London is just in at a very reasonable cost of £1.2 million. The report suggests that the noise from empty beer cans in the lake will keep the younger residents aware of the water feature even when it's not visible through layers of empty crisp packets and sweet wrappers, and the abandoned shopping trolleys and drug paraphernalia, will be enough to prevent dangerous short cuts across the lake by differently abled people who have been gifted with more social security benefits than sense.
The report also suggests that an area should be set aside upwind of the odour from the lake, where drug dealing and taking can be done safely in full view of the CCTV cameras, so if anyone gets beaten or robbed, the Police can facilitate the return of the drugs to our local entrepreneurs, and make sure the 'so called' victims can be chased out of town.
In a further effort to waste invest money, local councillors spent £2.3 million on a consultation report which decided that all the Fire Service vehicles should be replaced with electric powered units which obviously don't have any carbon footprint, and might save over £12 during their expected lifespan of 2 years.
The initial cost for each vehicle is 5 times the cost of a standard truck, but costs might be recouped as less water will be used on fires which will have burnt themselves out by the time the firefighters have arrived.
Each truck is capable of over 15mph, downhill, if pushed, and will have a range of more than 2 miles, or up to half a mile, if carrying water and a crew of one.
A council spokesman said, "Our consultants, Messers Joker and Clowne, have delivered an on time solution to the greenhouse gas problems which we are all responsible for here in Bradford, and the new fire engines are really red and shiny!"
An added bonus will be the influx of 'Eddie Stobart' watchers who will be attracted by the 'funny' names (the one illustrated is called Freddy), and they are expected to be a fantastic boost for the Bradford retail sector, by splashing out on notebooks and pencils.
Crime Prevention[edit]
The Bradford central police station, the Bridewell, dates back to 1963, in January 2007 along with Odsal Top police station it was closed. The Bridewell is due to be partially demolished in further phases of regeneration.
Whereas 'Zero Tolerance' was the success of the 90's, Bradford police adopted a new initiative called 'Zero Effort' policing which has been proven to reduce recorded crime by as much as 71.46%. PCSO's have been trained to adopt the 'blind eye' stance which consists of closing both eyes and placing an index finger in each ear and counting to 30, this stance is particularly handy for ignoring traffic and drugs offences.
On 24th May, 2007, Her Majesty The Queen opened the new police station, Trafalgar House; it is located on Nelson Street which is a five minute walk from the city centre allowing violent and antisocial crime to go undetected. The architects Sweeney, Kojak and Columbo (of Saltaire, Shipley), designed the four-storey fortress to hide accommodate more than 700 officers and staff. The station boasts a variety of facilities to occupy officers and staff to distract them from city centre confrontations, it is accessible to members of the public as car jacking predominantly takes place in the neighbouring BD5 area. The design is in line with the Secured by Design Standards and the Disability Discrimination Act in an attempt to boost attrition and sickness levels. Numerous escape routes [3] have been planned in the event of an unexpected celebration.
UNISON has logged several dozen complaints from the Police about the lack of a nearby KFC or McDonald's.
Trivia[edit]
- The CGI night time images of Centenary Square were influenced by Caprica from Battlestar Galactica, whilst the design team were high as a kite.
- An infant can drown in as little as one inch of water but at least the parents needn't take it to Pizza Hut at the Cineworld complex to scream all afternoon.
- The water features have a hose attachment so that water cannons can be utilised should another unexpected celebration occur in the city centre.
- Early attempts by Bradford Council to reduce their carbon footprint by allowing vegetation to grow freely (see picture) on city centre buildings was said by experts to have saved 80 tons of carbon, probably.
- Bradford's much misunderstood multiple killer, Peter Sutcliffe may be asked to open the 'park at the heart' when he is released after being proved totally innocent by the author Noel O'Gara.
- Bradford was once reported as the "Incontinence Capital" of England by a reporter on daily newspaper 'The Sun' after one of their hacks overheard a man on the train describing how Thornton Road was brim full of 'Tenner Ladies'.