I don't think it's EU money specifically for redevelopment of the city centre, West Yorkshire is actually classified as a 'more developed region' in the current EU budget period so it doesn't qualify for those kind of structural funds. It does qualify for funding in 'soft' areas like funding for training programmes to combat youth unemployment etc but then those funds are available to most of not all areas.
The only UK areas that currently qualify for the highest levels of regional cohesion funds that do pay for that kind of thing are Cornwall and West Wales. Apparently Cornwall has received 10% of all UK regional funding from the EU despite having less than 1% of the population!
But yeah, you're right. The city centre itself surprised me, it had a lot more nice Victorian architecture than I was expecting, even though there is a bigger proportion of empty retail units than in more prosperous places and a few awful mid 20th century buildings like those in the pics. I've been to Bradford once or twice before in my life but never really explored it before now.
However once you get beyond that (there's a typically 1960s dual carriageway ring road constricting the city centre) then it soon becomes more grim with quite a number of derelict industrial buildings or empty plots where buildings have been demolished and a lot of fast food places along the main routes. Yet further out again I saw from the train that it once more becomes nicer beyond those areas with 'standard/boring but perfectly acceptable if you are into that type of thing' type semi-detached and detached suburban areas like you get in most towns and cities across the country, except the homes are mostly faced in yellow stone rather than the more common brick. A classic case of the 'donut' effect I guess.
The weirdest thing was how underused the city centre seemed to be in the evening, it's by far the best looking part of the city but it seems everybody just leaves after work and there aren't many people actually living there. In that respect it's probably 25 years behind some of the other larger cities of Northern England which I remember being a bit like that in the early 90s but are now much more lively with much larger populations of city centre residents.