Developer and council’s stand-off over scheme
ONE of Huddersfield’s biggest eyesores has become the focus of a stand-off between landowners and the council.
Developer Trinity One LLP says it remains committed to the derelict former Kirklees College site and the 190-year-old original Huddersfield Infirmary within it.
But planners with Kirklees Council say the company has failed to comply with a legal obligation – known as a Section 106 agreement or s106 – to restore and convert the 1830s infirmary and its wings to flats.
Instead, says the council, Trinity One just wants to make the buildings secure and weather tight.
It means the matter will return to committee this week.
A massive £43m redevelopment of the six acre college site, which includes the Grade II*-listed infirmary, got the go-ahead in February.
The campus, bordering the A62 ring road, was to be largely demolished and replaced by a large apartment block, offices and a Lidl supermarket.
Planning officers said urgent repairs to the old infirmary, which forms the core of the site, would represent part of phase one of the build. It is this issue that has led to the current impasse.
Paul Fox, the project’s development manager with Leeds-based chartered surveyors Fox Lloyd Jones, said Trinity
One believed the s106 agreement “was in agreed form” in August “but the council position changed overnight.”
He said Trinity One now intends to demolish the entirety of the college and certain of the former nurses’ accommodation on the site to create “a gateway regeneration scheme” for Huddersfield.
He said: “On completion, the plot for Lidl will be presented as a cleared development platform as will the balance of the site to allow future phases of development. We strongly believe this commitment of works will attract end user/occupier interest as well as inward investment interest.
“The developers’ proposals have always been to undertake urgent repair works to stem the deterioration with a view to then trying to find a beneficial use for the listed buildings. This has always been the developers’ proposal.
“The council have latterly decided they require full restoration of the listed buildings, which has never been remotely deliverable.”
The council... require full restoration of the listed buildings, which has never been remotely deliverable.
The scheme comes before the council’s Strategic Planning Committee on tomorrow (Thursday, November 18) and is recommended for refusal.
Clr Peter McBride, the council’s Cabinet Member for Regeneration, pushed back against Mr Fox’s comments.
He said: “The planning committee previously resolved to approve the application with a clause in the legal agreement requiring the developer to restore and convert the listed infirmary building and its wings to flats; not just to undertake urgent works to make the building secure and weather-tight.
“The applicant has not agreed to this requirement and therefore the committee need to reconsider the planning application.”