Transport hub will offer through trains between Leeds and Manchester with ‘turn-up-and-go’ serviceA new railway station will be built in Bradford to “transform how people travel across the north”, the government has announced.The station will be at the heart of the Northern Powerhouse Rail (NPR) scheme, built on the current Bradford Interchange site but allowing through trains between Leeds and Manchester. Continue reading...

Ken Fero and Tariq Mehmood’s documentary recalls the fight against racism in 1980s Britain – even if its account of solidarity has a notable omissionThis fierce film from socialist film-makers Ken Fero and Tariq Mehmood gives us the story and the context of the Bradford 12. Twelve south Asian members of the United Black Youth League in 1981 were arrested on a charge of conspiracy to cause explosions for possessing dozens of molotov cocktails – milk bottles filled with petrol, with a rag […]

Andy Burnham has announced a crackdown, but doubts remain over authorities’ ability to take on organised crime“There were parents dropping their children off and then heaving from the smell,” says Liz Thompson, 45, who runs Blessings Nursery in Bradford, West Yorkshire.During the recent heatwaves, the smell from an illegal waste dump on Midland Road, just metres from the nursery, became so unbearable that staff had to keep the doors and windows shut and the children couldn’t play […]

My friend and former colleague Peter Ackroyd, who has died aged 76, spent much of his professional life championing the virtues of wool, mainly in senior positions with the National Wool Textile Export Corporation but also with the International Wool Textile Organisation.Over the years he worked to strengthen relationships between farmers, manufacturers, fashion designers, retailers and government officials, while promoting wool as a natural, renewable and biodegradable fibre with an important […]