'Other cities have cafe culture, why can't it happen in Bradford?'

What links the piazzas of Venice, the canalsides of Amsterdam and Bradford's Market Street? Café culture - the long-time ambition of the city's planners.

Six months after the city centre "gold route" from Broadway to City Park was pedestrianised, is Market Street becoming the Las Ramblas of West Yorkshire?

Last month Bradford Council announced it had granted a total of £18,000 to six businesses on Market Street and Bridge Street to purchase street furniture and the pilot scheme has now been extended for a further six months.

The original businesses were The Exchange Craft Beer House, SAPA Supermarket, The Old Bank pub, The Ginger Goose, Tiffin Coffee and Lela's Café.

Tiffin Venue Management runs The Ginger Goose and Tiffin Coffee. Director of sales and marketing Richard Cullen was an early campaigner for pedestrianising Market Street.

"One of the biggest issues was the bus routes were creating a lot of traffic for the city centre but not a lot of people were actually coming into the bars.

"So what we wanted to create and the vision was a link between the Broadway, Centenary Square, and eventually Bradford Live and the Alhambra Theatre, and create that street into something people want to come and visit."

Despite the disruption to the city centre it has all been worth it, he says, but more needs to be done to increase the number of hospitality businesses along the street.

"The street itself is not where I'd like it to be. That street needs to have more bars, more restaurants, and create a real entertainment hub within the city," he says.

"When you go the likes of London or Leeds, it doesn't matter really what the weather is, as long as there's cover and there's heating, people are outside. So we've seen that in other major cities, so why can't it happen in Bradford?"

Ben runs The Exchange Craft Beer House, a "subterranean" pub on Market Street.

He says the funding boost for outdoor furniture has had "a huge impact on sales".

"We're a winter pub, we were subterranean. It gets incredibly warm in summer, so it's made a huge difference. Now our busiest months are in the summer," he says.

"We're just going from our quietest three months to our busiest three months. But it would be good if other places could get some outdoor furniture too."

Sophie Craig and Abi Sinclair are in Bradford city centre for lunch. They say the area has changed significantly for the better in the past year.

"It's made a big difference," says Abi. "It's so much nicer walking down here and I think it has made it a lot easier, especially with Broadway.

"When I was here for uni, Broadway wasn't even open. So this being the main part of Bradford, it makes it a lot nicer," she says.

Sophie says Bradford feels much safer that other city centres, especially for her young son who loves running in the city's parks and pedestrianised areas.

"It's just so relaxed. It feels very homely. I have to get out all the time with a child and honestly coming here is so easy and it's just really nice to be around.

"There's the greenery by the town hall where you've got benches and he can just run around in the grass - with Leeds it's so built-up there's no way you can go with a kid whereas here he can just wander around. It's very safe, it feels really good."

Lynn and Edley Myers say they used to avoid the city centre but have recently started coming back to Bradford because it has changed for the better.

"It's fabulous," says Lynn. "We love it because we can go all the way up to the bus station, the interchange, without crossing a road. It used to be a nightmare on here with the bus stops.

"We hated it, didn't we? In fact we stopped coming into Bradford for that reason."

Nadeem Ahmed agrees it's "a lot better" and prefers Market Street to the rest of the city centre.

"I come down for shopping, food and to have cups of coffee, just to pass time," he says.

Jonny Noble is chief executive of Bradford Improvement District. He says the "dwell time" - the length of time people spend in the city centre - has increased from 60-90 minutes to "a couple of hours" since the works.

He says the focus is "the golden route through the city centre", which is now along Market Street out of the Broadway and along to City Park.

"I had a conversation an hour ago with a lady who had not been in the Bradford city centre for 10 years and she came yesterday for an event and she loved it.

"She said she didn't recognise the place because in the past you would be running in front of buses and taxis to get anywhere," he says.

He says the grants the council gave businesses for furniture required them to invest in high quality equipment that does not cause accessibility issues.

"They're licensed so there's regulations to it whereas probably in the past it might just been a few chairs and tables outside a doorway," he says.

"When it's a warm sunny day and you look down Market Street and you see Ben at the Exchange with his tables and chairs out, then to the end where you've got the The Old Bank and Ginger Goose people love to sit outside when the weather's nice, it's just natural.

"It's fantastic compared to where we were 18 months ago."

But Bradford's good weather days are few and far between, so can it sustain a "cafe culture" the other 360 days a year?

"People adapt. When you go to Amsterdam, it's the same, you know, it's cold, people still sit outside," says Noble.

"You get some rugs and you get some blankets. There's no such thing as bad weather, but bad clothing. So put your big coats, on sit outside and get some fresh air."

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