Pub front’s new future

THE work to turn a disused Huddersfield pub into luxury student accommodation is set to begin in the next few months.

Property developer Bal Khela said he hoped to begin transforming the New Wharf pub at Aspley into 59-bed student flats by Easter after he secured planning permission from Kirklees Council.

The New Wharf, formerly Dr Browns Ale & Wine Bar, occupies a prominent site at the junction of Wakefield Road and Firth Street and close to Huddersfield University’s Queensgate campus. The building has been disused for many years.

Mr Khela was first given planning permission in 2014 to demolish the pub and build a three-storey student accommodation block in its place.

The plan now approved by Kirklees and drawn up by Bradfordbased Yeme Architects is for a £3m scheme which will retain the frontage of the stone-built pub and incorporate it into a fivestorey development to include one and two bed en-suite rooms for 59 students, a gym and games room, concierge service and private meeting rooms.

Mr Khela said: “It will be a contemporarylooking building retaining part of the very nicelooking stone facade. It will dovetail into the new structure with an angled glass cube. It will provide five-star student living and will be a gateway building to the town centre.”

Explaining the change of plan, he said: “To demolish the pub would have been an injustice. I love the character of the building. That’s why we put in another plan because it would not be right to demolish a building with so much character.”

The new building – yet to be named – is the latest development to provide student flats in the town.

It follows on from the transformation of Standard House at Half Moon Street to create The Works, a mix of one, two and three-bed flats and studios to accommodate more than 100 students when it is completed later this year. The town centre also includes Thread Works, a 40-bed student apartment scheme in the former Thatchers furniture store in Dundas Street.

Both Thread Works and The Works have been developed by the Pervaiz family, owners of SKA Textiles at Longroyd Bridge.

Last summer, Kirklees councillors approved plans from developer Bradco for a 10-storey block of 186 student studios at the Waterfront Quarter close to Kirklees College.

The building will occupy a derelict site between Manchester Road and Huddersfield Narrow Canal and between the college building and Earnshaws motorcycle showroom alongside a previouslyapproved Bradco development Bradco of two blocks of student flats – together providing hundreds of apartments.

Mr Khela’s previous property schemes include building a Tesco convenience store on the site of The Grey Horse pub at Halifax Road, Birchencliffe.