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Mention Bradford’s Manningham district and the first thing that comes to most people’s mind is the 2001 riots, social deprivation and lack of community cohesion.

That’s why the decision by Tom Bloxham’s Urban Splash development company to press ahead with the regeneration of Manningham’s Lister Mills is as daring as it is remarkable. And my recent visit brought childhood memories flooding back.

Manningham, once home of Bradford’s wealthy mill owners and landed gentry, has in more modern times, become home to successive waves of inward migration. My parents arrived in Manningham in the late 50s where I was later born second to last of 9 children. We grew up there side by side with the more established Eastern European residents and newer arrivals from Pakistan. People from all of these communities, including my relatives, found work at Lister Mills, known as ‘Manningham Mills’ to locals.

We became the first Caribbean shopkeepers in Bradford with a grocery store in the middle of Manningham. My mother recalls with pleasure teaching curious English customers to prepare Caribbean staples like yams, plantain and salt fish.

The gigantic Lister Mills is located just yards away from my first school and was visible from just about everywhere. The Mill was part of our everyday life and my visit to the Urban Splash development was both a trip down memory lane and an impressive vision of the future.

Urban Splash claims to have sold around 50% of its stylish mill appartments to White customers. In an area that has long suffered ‘white flight’ this is an impressive achievement. The company’s activities in Manningham may begins to reverse equalities boss, Trevor Philips’ vision of a community ‘sleepwalking to segregation’.

Community cohesion may not have been the company’s top priority when embarking on the development of the Bradford mill but it seems to be having that effect.

And while the police got it hopelessly wrong with their menacing Robin Island style station in the middle of the neighbourhood, the proportions of Urban Splash’s attractive mill redevelopment manages to dwarfs the Met’s blot on the landscape.

I came away from my visit last week with a new optimism about Manningham’s future and hopeful that perhaps residents will once again enjoy the vibrant diversity I enjoyed there as a child.