Bradford Urban Garden
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“There must have been a large bung behind this shit.”
“You've had some serious cowboys in here.”
“You're telling me I have to simply fill in paperwork 9-5?”
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 to be the laughing stock of the entire of Europe CBMDC (Confused Bureaucratic Managers Demanding Change) have decided to literally bury the infamous Wastefield Shopping Centre under 1000 tones of mud and sand in the hope passers by will forget about what could have been.
Background of the hole[edit | edit source]
Before the barking mad idea of creating the urine filled pool known as the City Park, Bradford Council entered a contract with a company called Wastefield in 2003 to demolish much of Bradford's then successfully trading retail sites to replace them with a unique public realm attraction known as a huge fucking hole in the ground.
Given no other city in the entire of Europe had a huge fucking hole in the ground (at least not since WWII), it was decided that Bradford could set itself apart from other cities and build a successful and expanding retail base by flattening much of the retail units and forcing the traders to move out of the city centre onto Valley Road.
The people of Bradford were promised 3,000 new, minimum wage, 72 hour per week, exploitative jobs would be created by the year 2006 as a result of the demolition. However, by 2006 all the city had was a huge hole, piles of rubble and broken promises.
The director of Regeneration at city hall was on a salary exceeding £100,000, so at least one person was happy, very happy.
Expected retail boom[edit | edit source]
On the 7th February 2008 one of the key retail shops said to Wastefield "Yo G' stick the fucking BS mo'fo" or words to that effect, locals had hoped top end brands such as Lidl, TK Maxx, Cash Converters and Cash Generator would open superstores. Alas the only occupants of the Wastefield land were tumbleweed and a Womble looking for a new home.
Meanwhile, throughout the city centre, retail units closed, were boarded up or vandalised, those that were replaced became book makers, arcades or the odd fast food outlet, even pubs closed as the public realm enhancements around Centenary Square meant the dossers could drink booze from Tesco even cheaper on the tax payer funded benches.
Temporary Permanent Replacement Park[edit | edit source]
In February 2010, after spouting off enough lies in the local newspaper to have wasted 643 tonnes of carbon, Bradford Council finally conceded that the big hole had failed to boost the economy and had breached the human rights of dole dossers who had to walk around the Wastefield hoardings simply to sign on.
The Council decided, albeit years too late, something needed to be done, anything, well not quite anything as the Peter Sutcliffe theme park idea was rejected.
Finally though there was an opportunity for change, Bradford Council had a chance to fix Bradford's terminally failing retail sector by creating a temporary car park, that plan however was dismissed as a potentially successful idea and instead the lessons mistakes learned from public realm around Centenary Square would be repeated by creating more space to wander around aimlessly, beg, get drunk and commit sexual assault.
The hole was filled in with 1000 tonnes of mud and sand, finally a path, benches, lighting, a couple of dummy CCTV cameras and some sharp stones for the EDL to throw were put in place. The site features a performance area, its first use was for a contemporary urban dance troupe lead by and EDL and UAF on the 28th of August 2010, the performance featured synchronised pushing, chanting, stone throwing and the use of pyrotechnics.
Flooded with bitter tears[edit | edit source]
In January 2011 it was reported that the Urban Gardens was flooded with the bitter tears of nearby retailers as they suffered with rising bills and falling income. Alas, it had come to this, all the retail staff could do was collapse to their knees bend over and cry and cry and cry, for no more would the council listen to their tales of woe published in the local newspaper.
The council's remedy (again) was a series of artworks, this time however the artists were instructed to paint their artworks on nappies so they would soak up the tears whilst creating a vision of joy and positive Bradford spirit, for all to enjoy.
City of Sanctuary[edit | edit source]
In November 2010, Bradford was officially recognised as a 'City of Sanctuary' which was celebrated despite the fact it was merely a nice name for branding the city as a soft touch to foreign criminals and gypsies. The success of the 'City of Spongers Sanctuary' was overwhelming and sites throughout Bradford from Baildon to Shipley to Silsden were occupied by travellers, eventually they descended on the Urban Gardens but to avoid embarrassment at the scale of the camp the Council claimed it was an interactive art installation.
Crime[edit | edit source]
Since 2006 crime in Bradford city centre has been gradually eliminated thanks to operation "Head in the Sand" which involves the introduction of schemes to reduce recorded crime. Phase 1 of the operation was to outsource Bradford's 999 emergency number to a call centre in India manned by one individual who claims his name is Fred, this resulted overnight in 64% less crimes being recorded.
Phase 2 of the operation involves turning off the power to the CCTV motors so they no longer rotate and publishing the location of CCTV cameras on maps so the local criminals can avoid detection.
Phase 3 of the operation is the provision of an online crime map so the criminals can work to achieve a high score each month.
Trivia[edit | edit source]
- As of 26/09/10 59,234 words have been published in the local newspaper in efforts to lie about Bradford's failed regeneration.
- The latest Mad Max film (provisionally titled Fury Road) was originally planned to have taken place on a number of locations around Bradford including the Urban Gardens as part of the Unesco city of film honour, Mel Gibson was said to have been attracted to Bradford due to the local anti-Semitic views and post apocalyptic locations.
- It helps when making decisions on the future of Bradford to live no closer than Keighley, Ilkey or Craven so that you do not spend your post political life being reminded of your failure.
