Council slammed over ‘complete eyesore’
COUNCIL ‘LET DEVELOPERS GET AWAY WITH WHAT THEY WANT’
CALLS for action at the eyesore former Kirklees College site are growing amid a return of arson and vandalism at the abandoned Grade II listed site.
Along with Huddersfield MP Barry Sheerman, who criticised the inaction on Tuesday following a police incident and fire, Clr Andrew Cooper and Gerard Quinn, the founder of the ‘Huddersfield Town Centre Regeneration’ Facebook group, have urged the council to step in.
In a post on the group, Mr Quinn accused planning chiefs of a “laissez faire” attitude towards the high-profile site, which is owned by a private developer and has now been disused for sixand-a-half-years.
Speaking to the Examiner, Mr Quinn said he had urged council chiefs to act before someone got hurt at the derelict Huddersfield town centre site.
“Everybody in town is absolutely disgusted,” he said, adding: “It’s a complete eyesore, it’s appalling.
“The site is obviously not secure, something is going to happen to someone.
“It could be to a firefighter or to someone who has broken in.
“I know the council has written to the developer asking it to do something.”
Referring to the college and the controversial George Hotel site, he added: “They’ve just let developers get away with what they want.
“They’re not taking control of important strategic buildings. They’re letting them go into the hands of private developers who are just sitting on them.
“We’ve got beautiful buildings that are going to rack and ruin. The council seem to be ignoring what people are thinking.
“They’ve got the powers to intervene on listed buildings that they’re not using.”
Mr Quinn said an identical listed former infirmary in Margate, Kent, had successfully been developed into apartments and he urged the current owners to do something similar.
Responding to Mr Quinn’s comments on his Facebook group, senior councillor Carole Pattison said planning permission had twice been granted.
Clr Pattison, who was on the Strategic Planning Committee that approved the previous plan in 2016, before the plan was scrapped and the site was sold on, said: “The developers are responsible for bringing this site forward.
“As far as I’m aware, Kirklees Council are not putting any barriers in the way.”
Clr Andrew Cooper, whose Newsome ward covers the controversial site, said the council needed to try harder to get the project going.
Last week Mr Sheerman said it was “time that the people who own the site get round the table with the local authority, the fire service and the police and see what can be done regarding this problem.”
The Leeds-based firm behind the proposed redevelopment, Rhodes Asset Management, has not responded to Examiner requests for comment on the site since June of last year, when problems with its plan, dubbed Trinity West, first emerged.
Their plan was left in tatters after influential conservation group, Historic England, objected causing Kirklees Council to put any decision on hold. The plans, first lodged in August 2018, remain undecided.
A plan B attempt to have the 1970s concrete office blocks converted was then refused by the council.
Nothing has been heard since that decision in August of last year. A few months later the listed old infirmary buildings and statue were put on the Historic England ‘At Risk’ register.
The site continues to be advertised for rent as a 280,000 sq ft mixed use office, hotel and retail site on the website of Leeds based property firm, Fox Lloyd Jones.
A spokeswoman for the firm said discussions were still underway and an update may be available shortly.
West Yorkshire Police said they were monitoring the site and the owners were to step up security. This would include dog patrols.
A spokesman said a crime of arson had been recorded over what happened last Wednesday afternoon and an investigation was underway.