[3] In the late 1920s, in the context of high rates of unemployment during the Great Depression, civic leaders decided to create construction jobs for local people by procuring a new town hall: the site they selected had been occupied by the Manor House, which had since been demolished.

[a] The new building was designed in the Neo-Georgian style and was opened by the Lord Lieutenant of the West Riding of Yorkshire, the Earl of Harewood, on 2 December 1932.

[11] The town hall continued to serve as the headquarters of the urban district for much of the 20th century but ceased to be the local seat of government after the enlarged Bradford Council was formed in 1974.

[12] Nevertheless, Bradford Council continued to use the town hall as the local venue for meetings of groups of officers from different departments convened by an area co-ordinator.

[13] The town hall was the venue for a controversial public inquiry, from which angry protestors were excluded, into the route of a proposed Airedale Trunk Road in February 1976.