The campaign will be supported by Kirstie Allsop, presenter of Channel 4’s Location, Location, Location, who is to feature in a film about the property market in Bradford that will be circulated on DVD in Whitehall.
The council has teamed up with regional development agency Yorkshire Forward and urban regeneration company Bradford Centre Regeneration to persuade civil service departments to move to Bradford following the recommendations of the Lyons Report.
Released in July, the report was commissioned by the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister and concluded that substantial savings could be made in the civil service by moving up to 20,000 posts away from London to the regions.
Bradford is lobbying the Government to bring 1,000 jobs to the city. Council regeneration manager Martin van Zeller said: ‘Not everyone will want to move, which means there will be jobs available for local people.’
Every government department is under pressure to move people away from London and the South-East since Chancellor Gordon Brown set efficiency targets in his last budget – property prices in Bradford are around half that of London.
The partnership has funding to run the lobbying campaign until next April.
