30 years of National Lottery funding across Bradford’s 30 wards - and the Bradfordians who make it count
1st August 2025
The first National Lottery money backing a good cause in Bradford was used by the city’s Metropolitan District Council to refurb a public art gallery in Manningham ward. That was June 1995 and since then all 30 of Bradford’s wards have benefitted from between £1m and £100m each.
The positive impacts are far reaching on sports and community, culture and arts, heritage and more — led by, and for, the people who call Bradford home.
2025 is a big year for Bradford. The place and its people are celebrating their UK City of Culture 2025 status. It is hoped many benefits will stem from the year and related investments.
Meanwhile Bradford has health, economic and social challenges like many places. But there is good here too, including thousands of Bradfordian good causes backed by National Lottery funding.
‘Braddie’ but goodie
More than 4,000 good causes have been backed with National Lottery funding – local projects, places and people (e.g. athletes, artists).
Consider this snapshot, sampling the most recently funded good causes (at June 2025) across Bradford:
- Six community-led projects: two Community Associations, two Community Centres; a youth association in Eccleshill ward and a Community Choir based at Bolton and Undercliffe ward.
- Five sport-related projects: The Bradford Bulls Foundation’s project chronicling the history of amateur rugby league from 1895. Plus, Positive Strength Training CIC from Keighley West delivering falls prevention gym classes for older people. Elsewhere, three local cricket clubs.
- Five women-focused projects: Health activity for South Asian women in Toller ward, health activity for inactive women in Bradford Moor. A brand-new women-led theatre company producing an LGBTQ+ stage show in 2025 and a women and children’s centre in Keighley Central.
Big picture: Where have the grants gone?
Explore the map to see funding totals per ward. Important to note: National Lottery funding often gets used across boundary lines.
The combined total backing Bradford’s good causes is over £333m – other cities have similar totals across The National Lottery’s 30 years.
The most recent projects are shown per ward. Highlights include Haworth Riding for the Disabled Group, the Aire Rivers Trust in Keighley East and the Burley-in-Wharfedale Community Trust funded to create cycle tracks and a wellbeing area on vacant space on the local recreation ground.
What has the money done?
With over 4,000 good causes and counting it’s hard to fathom all the positive impacts, past and present.
And things get tricky because, like elsewhere in the UK, the real story in Bradford blurs boundaries. For instance, the largest one-off grant here went to the charity Bradford Trident for ‘Better Start - Bradford'. That was a major grant, backing a decade’s worth of early years’ services across three wards. That money supported work across several of Bradford’s most deprived areas.
The National Lottery Community Fund (including its years known as The Big Lottery Fund) has distributed over £190m to health, education, environment and other projects run by Bradford-based charities, community centres, voluntary organisations and many others. A huge range of work including help on serious social issues.
Over £100m more has gone from other distributors of National Lottery money to boost a huge range of Bradfordian sports, heritage and art. And well over £10m from National Lottery distributors has helped big up Bradford.
Spotlight: Bradford Literature Festival
With over 4,000 good causes backed in Bradford since 1995, it’s tough to spotlight one. But Bradford Literature Festival (BLF) is a cultural highlight of any given year. In summer 2025, over 700 festival events gave Bradford energy, entertainment and engagement for locals and visitors alike.
Several organisations involved in the festival are funded by Arts Council England and other National Lottery funding distributors. Since 2014, the organisation behind the festival, Culture Squared CIC, has gained seven grants by Arts Council England’s distribution of National Lottery funds (three toward the festival, four toward other projects).
Culture Squared founder and CEO Syima Aslam provides a Bradfordian view on the difference made:
“Bradford Literature Festival is Arts Council England funded. But we have money from other funders too. The funding allows us to deliver more. It allows us to have ethical ticketing. Roughly 60% of our programming is for children, young people, and that is all free.”
For Syima, literature spans everything: classic books, poetry, song lyrics, screenplays. And she emphasises literacy, “it impacts everyone, and everyone's outcomes. Without literacy, every part of the curriculum is closed to you. Everything goes back to words.”
Syima explains that funding has enabled in-depth work. “We worked with Better Start, Bradford (see above). We run an early years programme within the festival. That’s so positive, allowing us a focus that we otherwise wouldn't have.”
Given 2025 is a big year for Bradford, how does Syima sum up the place?
“Bradford is interesting because it is diverse, it has so many communities. Bradford has some of the richest wards, it's got some of the poorest wards. A place of real contrast.”
Syima’s closing words on Bradford Literature Festival’s success speak volumes about the wider place and its people:
“We have people coming from all over the world to BLF. That's really a testament to Bradford.”
