Distress as landmark site now to be car park

A CITY centre site once earmarked for a major redevelopment project can be turned into a car park.

The former workshop site on Thornton Road, Bradford, was due to be the site of a “landmark” multi-million pound new complex of 138 apartments spread out over nine storeys.

It would have included four shops and a cafe on the ground floor and a landscaped courtyard. Those plans, by Golden Sands Developments, were approved in 2015 and the company said it would enhance Thornton Road.

But after the company went into administration, the scheme folded and the site – next to Hollings Mill and within the Goitside Conservation Area – has remained empty.

Last year an application was submitted to Bradford Council by Kamran Khan to turn the site into a 41-space car park.

That scheme has now been approved by Bradford Council, despite concerns. Heritage officer Jon Ackroyd said the car park plans were “disappointing” for a prominent site in a Conservation Area. He added: “The proposed use is disappointing when development comprising a built form which would contribute to both the long- term regeneration of the area and the visual quality of the Thornton Road frontage would be desirable.”

He said the plans would fail to enhance the Conservation Area.

But planning officers approved the scheme despite these concerns. They said: “The site has a boarding up along Thornton road subjected to graffiti and within the site is an unsightly tipping ground. An occupation of this site and this utilising the site would improve the current situation particularly within a sensitive Conservation Area.”

In 2018 plans for a car park were approved for a site on Holdsworth Street – the site of a proposed £350m housing development that also included a reinstated canal.