It's now more than six years since they destroyed Bradford, the city in which I work. I originally reported on the demolition back in 2007. (I didn't have a blog in 2004 when it actually began.) They knocked down a large part of the city centre - right outside our office window - in preparation for an exciting new shopping and leisure palace of wonderment... which never actually materialised.
A year later, it looked like things were moving again. The workmen returned, cleared away all the rubble, and began digging a huge crater for the development's foundations... and then, everything ground to a halt once more.
The public blamed the council, the council blamed the developers, the developers blamed the recession. Lee Harvey Oswald was spotted having his lunch on the third floor of a nearby book depository... you can guess the rest.
It doesn't matter who's to blame. It doesn't change the fact that we stare out of our office into a big hole in the ground that used to be Bradford. In an effort to placate the angry mob, the council turned a section of the site (sadly the section furthest away and not in any way visible from our window) into an "urban garden". They allegedly spent £300,000 on a fence, some tarmac and the planting of some scrubby grass... which promptly flooded because they'd forgotten to include any drains. The urban garden became an urban swimming pool and is now closed for extensive drainage work (rumoured to be costing an extra £30,000).
But the flooding isn't confined to the garden of earthly delights... as the images below reveal. The crater itself is also filling up with water. It's becoming a lake. So much so that seagulls have started living there, riding the waves that regularly lap up against the rusting steel of the fabled development's foundations. Sometimes geese try to land in the lake and the seagulls fight them off. At times it's like working next to a harbour. One day, we fully expect to look out and see a huge cruise liner docking. Maybe somebody swinging a champagne bottle on a bit of string. Sailors on leave propositioning prostitutes. You know the sort of thing.
But in case you're worried I might float away and never be seen again, fear not... last week, two blokes in Donkey Jackets and a van that said "Dewatering Experts" on the side (you couldn't make this up) were sent in to sort it all out. They walked about a bit, tapped a few pipes, talked on their phones... then buggered off. Still, it's good to know we're in such safe hands. You don't get that kind of service anywhere else... only in Bradford.
