‘Ours, for good’: how the People’s Property Portfolio are taking back Bradford’s empty buildings – Interview

On a quiet street in Bradford’s Little Germany, 17–21 Chapel Street tells a story that stretches from industry and activism to a community ownership project. Once a school, a warehouse, and a resource centre, the building has continually adapted to the needs of its time. Today, under People’s Property Portfolio, it represents an attempt to reclaim space for the creative communities who live and work in the city. TSOTA spoke with directors Harry Jelley and Sarah Bird about tackling empty buildings and precarious creative spaces in Bradford through community ownership.

17-21 Chapel Street sits in Little Germany, a crown jewel of Bradford’s heritage, where 55 of its 85 buildings are listed. Like many of its neighbours, this building has a rich history. Once a Quaker school, a ‘stuff’ (wool fabric) warehouse, and later ‘The Bradford Resource Centre’. Now it is home to People’s Property Portfolio (PPP): a community benefit society and co-operative.

Harry Jelley, one of the directors at PPP, explains that they exist to take community ownership of buildings in Bradford City Centre. “We’ve got rogue, absentee landlords who are leaving buildings to fall to ruin,” he says, “and simultaneously, we’ve got artists being forced out of studio space or forced to work in space that’s suboptimal.” He continues, “We’re trying to address both of those things, more equitable ownership of space and a democratic vision for the future of Bradford City Centre.” 

PPP grew directly out of lived experience. “As a creative, you’re used to working in the worst places,” says Harry, drawing on his time in Sheffield and Manchester. “It can feel great when you’re 20-something and you’ve got a place, but in reality they are often really bad places.”

Creatives and community organisations frequently find themselves in “meanwhile spaces”: vacant buildings which are temporarily brought back into use while awaiting long-term development. Precarious, but affordable. 

Sarah Bird, also a director at PPP, previously worked with the DIY Star & Shadow Cinema and the Newbridge Project in Newcastle, both of whom were unceremoniously turfed out at the behest of developers. “We expereince this precarity in the spaces we work all across the country,” she says. 

The same pattern repeats across Yorkshire. In Bradford, the closure of the Oastler Centre saw the loss of a home for many creatives and cultural organisations. In Leeds, TSOTA has covered multiple studio and venue closures due to property development, from The Tetley and Sheaf Street in 2023 to MAP Charity and Old Red last year. “There are organisations doing some of the best work in Bradford operating out of ‘meanwhile space’ where the toilets don’t work and there’s no running water,” Harry says. “A private building owner could fill it with the most beautiful community organisations and artists,” he continues, “but they can still turn around at any point and say, ‘now we want you out.’”

Having first set sights on the disused building which later became the hugely popular Loading Bay during Bradford City of Culture, Poeple’s Property Portfolio have been working towards this moment for years. 

“We did a piece of work early on, a forensic accountancy of who owns what in Bradford, and you wouldn’t believe the amount of buildings opaque organisations with bank accounts in tax havens own,” says Harry. “It’s land banking. These buildings just appreciate in value, and someone, somewhere, gets to put on their budget line that they’ve increased their wealth by £100k.” 

“The city centre of Bradford isn’t working,” Harry continues. “Landlords keep buildings empty to benefit themselves, but they don’t care about Bradford.” This became painfully clear in December last year, when a five-storey building in the heart of the city centre collapsed. The Dale Street structure had been vacant for years, with trees left to grow out deteriorating mortar. 

“It could have been home to artists, businesses or housing, but instead landlords chose to keep it empty,” Harry notes. “This is what happens when owners who don’t believe in the city control its buildings.”

Sarah adds: “‘Land banking’ is a term we’re trying to harness – the idea of a ‘people’s land bank’. We want to take community ownership of what were previously empty buildings and get them back into active community use.”

PPP has placed 17-21 in an asset lock, legally ensuring it serves the community for good. “If we ever had to sell this, it must be ‘for community good’,” says Harry. “That’s why we say it’s ‘ours, for good’. Now we’ve bought it, the community owns it.”

17-21 Chapel Street came to PPP through what they call ‘a perfect alignment’. The ‘Friends of Bradford Resource Centre‘, set up to archive and preserve the building’s history, needed a future for it. PPP needed a building. After eighteen months of conversations, an asset transfer was completed for £1. “They just believed in us,” says Harry. 

17–21 has always adapted to meet community needs: builders raised the roof to meet wool storage demand; a lift shaft and grab rails were added to improve accessibility for disabled activists. Now, it will transform once again to provide a much-needed secure and affordable community arts space. 

Walking through the building, Sarah and Harry talk of each room’s imagined future: studios under arched windows; event space on the ground floor; offices with exposed beams. But PPP’s ambitions reach beyond this building. 

“Once we’ve refurbished and tenanted this building, we reinvest what it generates back into PPP to acquire more buildings,” says Sarah. “We talk about what those buildings could be – a community-owned chippy, a community-owned swimming pool, a cinema. Spaces that anyone could just walk into.” Whatever they own, Sarah and Harry say, will always respond to community needs.

“What we’re talking about seems radical, but in reality it’s just sensible,” Harry emphasises. “Essentially, we’re trying to redistribute wealth so that the people who own where we live, work and play are ‘the people’.” 

Bradford, he argues, has a generational opportunity that cities like Leeds may have already missed. “We have this chance to take ownership of space in Bradford while it’s actually affordable. If we can own this building, and a building just over there, and another just over there, suddenly we’re a significant landlord in Bradford city centre. We can go to the council and hold them to account.” That security of ownership matters just as much as the buildings themselves. “No one can kick us out,” he says. “No one can get rid of us when we’re saying things that are inconvenient.”

Getting there requires investment. The People’s Property Portfolio are running a community share offer for anyone to get invovled in, with a minimum investment of £50 payable in five monthly instalments of £10. Crucially, regardless of how much you invest, every member gets one vote. “If you invest £50 or if you invest £20,000, everyone has the same say,” explains Harry. 

PPP are honest about where the money goes: insurance, business rates, project management, all the necessities to keep a listed building ticking over while they secure capital works. “The share offer creates unreserved funds,” Harry explains. “Money we can actually spend on what we need.”

Sarah puts it simply: “You don’t have to be from Bradford to care about this stuff. This affects creatives across the country. We’re trying to do something about that and offer a radical alternative: safer, more affordable, secure spaces.”

“There’s a vision for a better future for all of us at the heart of this,” Harry continues. “Ownership means that we can amchor ourselves in our city centre ‘for good’. And with it, we can become an organisation that advocates for a better city centre for all of us.” 

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To find out more information about People’s Property Portfolio you can visit their website or follow them on Instagram. 

To invest in their first community share offer you can find out more information here.