Case Study: Bradford City Centre Regeneration
Securing Bradford’s new pedestrianised city centre
Bradford 2025 UK City of Culture has been undergoing an extensive regeneration project in advance of the year-long celebrations and programme of events that will take place in the city this year.
The City of Bradford Metropolitan District Council (MDC) hopes to become the premier clean growth district in the UK. In order to achieve this, the Council is undertaking a significant regeneration of the city centre environment and its transport infrastructure. A key element of this is the pedestrianisation of the city centre, and the desire to keep its population safe from the threat of hostile vehicle incursions.
Bradford MDC wanted to create new public spaces – and transform transport and travel into and around the city centre by improving routes and facilities for public transport, cycling and walking.
These transformational projects, aimed at encouraging people to leave the car at home, are one of the main ways Bradford MDC hopes to reach the region’s ambitions of becoming a net zero carbon economy by 2038.
This once in a generation project was funded through West Yorkshire Combined Authority’s Transforming Cities Fund (TCF) programme

Townscape CT Sentry block in Bradford City centre
To ensure the proportionate specification and delivery of appropriate HVM solutions to the newly pedestrianised spaces, Bradford MDC engaged Crowdguard as their Hostile Vehicle Mitigation partner.
Crowdguard’s appointment allowed Bradford to consolidate its entire HVM requirement under one company, managing the process from initial design and specification right through to installation and service.
By utilising products from six leading manufacturers, Crowdguard brought together a bespoke solution tailored to Bradford’s needs, ensuring seamless integration of the chosen systems and delivering a robust, city-wide protective perimeter.
Crowdguard were involved in the initial design engagement in May 2023, working in partnership with Bradford Council and the Sweco design team. Working to a designed risk level we advised and designed the scheme to meet the operational requirements, which provided all the key stakeholders with an additional layer of information of how to best protect Bradford City centre from the threat of a hostile vehicle attack.
Chris Bedford, Principal Engineer – Highways, Design and Construction Planning, Transportation and Highways Service at Bradford MDC said:
“Crowdguard came onboard at the design stage to work with ourselves Sweco and Balfour Beatty due to their HVM expertise in providing solutions right through to installation.
Working with a company that provides the correct solution to the application has been a pleasure, as we have delivered the HVM as part of the TCF scheme”

Marshalls 7250 HVM bollard in Bradford City Centre
Crowdguard provided a full HVM specification and design carefully selecting appropriate and proportionate HVM solutions from a range of leading manufacturers to form our supply chain, based on our counter-terrorism strategy and plan as well as our extensive knowledge of the HVM market.
We chose the most appropriate, ISO22343-1 /PAS68 / IWA14 tested permanent HVM products, to start installing on-site in January 2024, including:
- Heald Matador ST4
- Townscape CT Sentry Block
- ATG Access Centurion
- Marshalls 7250 shallow mount bollards
- MACS Pilomat automated bollards
- Unafor Core*
*Unafor Core was installed to protect Centenary Square which is a dedicated Publicly Accessible Location (PAL) event space.

Unafor Core dressed with elegant shrouds in Bradford City Centre
Crowdguard Managing Director, Iain Moran, said:
“With a project of this size and complexity, one of the key considerations was regular, open communication and co-ordination with all the key stakeholders. In this respect, the teams at Bradford MDC, Balfour Beatty and Sweco were all superb. Any issues that arose were dealt with during the design phase, so that solutions could be found, and issues designed out, before we reached the main construction phase of this project.
“From the HVM perspective, choosing the suppliers that we did, as part of our Plan, Provide, Protect model, enabled us to use the most suitable, proportionate selection of products, and this helped the team to keep the delivery of the project on schedule, and within budget.”

Our Plan Provide Protect methodology helps to create the most proportionate, practical HVM strategy
The opening events for the year-long Bradford 2025 UK City of Culture will take place on 10 & 11 January 2025. RISE is a spectacular outdoor theatrical event that will take place in City Park and Centenary Square, launching the year-long programme.
Crowdguard are immensely proud of our contribution to the historic regeneration of Bradford City centre. From being invited to supply the HVM solutions by the Metropolitan District Council, to project managing the design, location and installation of six different HVM manufacturers’ equipment, ensuring that the most appropriate and proportionate solution was installed at each of the eight locations – every aspect of this project has been a huge success.
We look forward to continuing our partnership with the 2025 UK City of Culture, well into the future.
Get in touch with the Crowdguard team to discuss your HVM requirements. We will give you the best possible advice and provide a turnkey service to help you plan and implement strategies to keep people safe in crowded places, with market-leading solutions installed by experts, designed to help you mitigate risk.
Tel: 0161 507 3434
Email: info@crowdguard.co.uk