page_title: Broomfields, Bradford
section_title: De-population and industrial transformation after 1930
hierarchical_section_title: Broomfields, Bradford / De-population and industrial transformation after 1930
caption_attribution_description: English: View of Bolling Road (built c 1930) in 2014, showing commercial premises.
context_page_description: Broomfields is a historic district on the south eastern edge of Bradford, West Yorkshire, England. In 1840 it was still a mainly rural area with a population of only a few hundred people. By 1880 it was one of the most densely populated districts of Bradford with 1,500 houses, a population of about 8,000 and many commercial premises. In 1932 a process of slum clearance and commercial regeneration was started. Today the district is almost wholly given over to commercial premises and once again has a resident population of only about two hundred people.
context_section_description: Bradford Borough Council initiated its first slum clearance and urban regeneration schemes (although on a small scale) in the first decade of the 20th century. After the first world war it was presented with an unexpected opportunity in Broomfields. The Midland Railway  Company  had acquired Ladywell fields and a strip of houses along Bolling Street for its planned Bradford Through Line. It had  already started on demolition (see Fig. 6.5) when it decided (1918) to abandon the scheme. Land acquired by the company was bought by the Bradford Corporation. In 1926 the corporation declared Ladywell Fields a public park and built a children's paddling pool fed from the Ladywell spring. The corporation continued the demolition program initiated by MRC and built not a railway but an up-to-date dual carriageway road. Completed in 1931 and named "Bolling Road" it was intended as a focus for urban regeneration. It is shown in Fig.11.
  On completion of the road a major "slum clearance" program followed. Many of the houses demolished predated the 1854 building bylaw and had wholly inadequate space and sanitary provision. By 1939 virtually all the houses between the  railway and Rouse Fold and north of  Mill Lane had been demolished. Only pubs, some commercial premises and a few of the grander houses were spared demolition.
  52 new local authority houses were built between Rouse Fold and Hall Lane. The majority of the Broomfields residents were re-housed on the borough's new "out of town" estate at Canterbury Avenue.
  In 1939 war interrupted the program. In 1945, in the face of a desperate housing shortage, the Corporation was glad to accept a central government offer of 350 prefabricated houses. (See Prefabs in the UK) About 60 of these were erected on the recently cleared land in Broomfields. (See fig 14.4).
  In 1951 (as required by the 1947 Town and Country Planning Act) Bradford Corporation formally adopted the "Bradford Development Plan". This plan envisaged the demolition of virtually all 19th century housing in Broomfields and its replacement by "light industrial and distribution" uses. The regeneration program started with construction of a new police headquarters in Bolling Road about 1956. After removal of the "prefabs" new industrial units appeared rapidly. In the late 1950s house demolition recommenced. By 1960 virtually all 19th century houses in and adjoining Hall  Lane had been demolished. In 1970 the "model village" of Ripley Ville was demolished. Over the next few years Wakefield Road was widened to a dual carriage way and the remnants of Broomfield's 19th century houses were cleared to make way for it.
caption: Fig.11 Bolling Road built 1931
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