Read all about it: From bookish Bradford’s City of Culture legacy to the nationwide Year of Reading 2026

22nd April 2026

Over the past three decades about £1billion of National Lottery funds has backed writing and reading. Thanks to National Lottery players this funding story has grown across more than 30 years into an epic tale featuring countless characters:

Thousands of book clubs, reading groups, libraries and literary organisations, publishers and people around the UK.
Hundreds of books, from the first ‘Encyclopaedia of Wales’ to ‘The Book of Bradford’ (see below).
Layers of funding to key organisations, like the £55m between The Book Trust (England/UK), The Scottish Book Trust and Northern Ireland BookTrust (all one word).
Major grants to big institutions like The British Library, totalling close to £20m so far.
Special events like a weekend’s storytelling in Conwy, Wales (the smallest grant to a reading event).

Impacts on and off the page

The benefits for readers, from pre-school to retirees, are untold. As are the positive aspects for writers. Countless authors have been supported for decades by the Arts Councils in England, Northern Ireland and Wales as well as Creative Scotland, distributing money raised by National Lottery players.

Here’s one true story: Just before the millennium, a very small amount of National Lottery money was awarded in Scotland to help a young J.K. Rowling. A long time ago yet not forgotten, Rowling has acknowledged how pivotal that grant was - like a wave of a wand in a Potter tale - a small action that helped toward today’s growing legacy worth billions to publishing, the UK film and TV industries, and tourism.

Literary links

Money raised by players of The National Lottery continues to back all kinds of projects with literary links, and positive impacts, year on year. And for many people 2026 is extra special as The National Year of Reading. While ‘the Year’ is not funded by The National Lottery, the back story shared across key partners makes for an interesting read.

For instance, The Book Trust is one key partner, and its National Lottery funding (noted above) has been substantial across the home nations. A second partner for the Year is The Reading Agency. Over the past 20 years, The Reading Agency has put to good use 12 grants totalling nearly £4.5m.

A third key partner, The National Literacy Trust, has received 22 grants totalling over £7.75m. In that mix, since 2020, The National Literacy Trust has been funded for reading projects across the UK - partly taking place around Bradford.

Spotlight: Bookish Bradford

By the 1850s Bradford was on the literary map thanks to the Haworth village-based Brontë sisters. Across the past thirty years, this city has continued to grow its literary links with money raised by The National Lottery players:

23 of Bradford’s 30 Wards have had a book published or a book-based project backed. (Sidenote: Looking across all walks of life, 100% of Bradford’s 30 wards have shared in over £338m of National Lottery funds so far).
Shipley Library got the first relevant grant (1996) developing its services for people with multiple and/or learning disabilities, paying for training, and employing a Part-Time development worker.
The Edwardian era Manningham Library was saved by a Big Lottery (National Lottery) grant of £1.5m back in 2007.
Local publisher Redbeck Press (now closed) had grants over many years. They published fiction and poetry including The Spirit of Bradford (2001).
Funded fiction includes a literary-art crossover by Razwan Ul-Haq, Phobiastan (2018).
Bradford books span non-fiction like local histories recorded in print or digital.
Translations also feature, e.g. Urdu-to-English and vice versa.
The literature festivals of Ilkley and Morley and have been funded over the years.
Bradford Literature Festival has had several grants over its ten years, significantly helping it to become a national event.
Local literary heritage has been funded, including the Brontë Society and Brontë Parsonage Museum.
32 books published, the latest being “The Book of Bradford” (Comma Press 2025).

‘The Book of Bradford’

The Book of Bradford is a collection of contemporary short stories penned by 11 different Bradfordians or folks with strong ties to the city. The book was commissioned by Bradford 2025 – the City of Culture year hugely helped by £15m of money raised by National Lottery players.

The book was published by Comma Press, a literary organisation with a long and illustrious track record, regularly funded by Arts Council England using National Lottery funds.

Included are 11 short stories that give locals, visitors, or any reader different takes on Bradford and its people.

Writer Nick Ahad explains the short story he penned for the collection: “I have a particular British Asian experience. My dad's Bangladeshi, my mum's White. I've got this mixed heritage and that’s what I explore in my writing for screen and stage.”

Portrait of stage and screen writer Nick Ahad, who tells us about how he came to write a short story for The Book of Bradford — Nick Ahad, writer of stage and screen - and now short story - featured in 'The Book of Bradford', 2025. (Picture from Comma Press).

What sparked Nick’s story? “Place was key to it,” Nick recalls. “Saima Mir (the book’s editor) asked me if I wanted to be part of The Book of Bradford. I said, yes, and then my next line was: Can I please have The Sweet Centre?”

Why that setting? “The Sweet Centre is this place that has been in Bradford since 1964. Serving Asian breakfast to the Asian mill workers – Bangladeshis, Indians would get a real taste of home.”

“When I was young, I’d go with my dad. Even though I am mixed race, I grew up in a white environment in Keighley, so every now and then it almost felt like I visited the other half of my family or the other half of who I was.”

Today, Nick explains, the story’s location is known by all Bradfordians. “The Sweet Centre has become this iconic place in Bradford. It's down the street that became notorious as a setting for the TV series Band of Gold. It's sort of taken on this almost mythic status.”

Portrait of The Book of Bradford's editor Saima Mir at the book's launch in Bradford, 2025. — Saima Mir, the book's editor at the book's launch event, late 2025. (Picture from Comma Press).

Nick's short story tells of a key moment between a father and son. Why? “What I did was think about a moment of deep change. So, I put these two characters in a room to see what happens when you have ‘the pressure cooker’ moment?”

The story certainly gives off both the heat of the kitchen and the heat of the moment. “I love that – for me, the beauty of reading and writing is that the reader will bring something to it that you might not necessarily have put in there yourself.”

How does Nick sum up what The Book of Bradford book tells of the place and its people?

“Our city is made up of massive moments, like City of Culture, and small moments. My narrative is about small moments, of fathers and sons talking in a little curry house, on a backstreet. We’re a complex, beautiful, brilliant city, and I think that this book tells that story.”

The Book of Bradford is a fitting legacy from the City of Culture celebrations in 2025. Any reader can savour, learn from, and discuss its unique stories for years to come. Yet what better time than now: 2026, The National Year of Reading?

Footnote

Bradford is not unique in its bookish nature, of course. The money raised for good causes by National Lottery players has backed writing and reading in every part of the UK. Authors and book clubs, reading groups, literary organisations, festivals, libraries, as well as literacy for children... and that's not even half the story.

Notes to editors

Zooming out, there are many broader projects funded thanks to National Lottery players that have not been included in this data snapshot. Yet they still have literary links: examples include local book clubs, poetry readings, or Bradford’s Twisting Yarn Theatre Company that got funding to tour an adaptation of Yann Martel's novel Life of Pi.