Parish School to be demolished by Parish Church

A minor victory this week. Kirkheaton Parish School, which was set to have an application (from the Parish Church) to demolish passed this week, has been deferred for a little while longer as English Heritage are consulted regarding the merit of the building. Special thanks to the Victorian Society who wrote to Kirklees council to request this. I will keep you posted on the outcome of this consultation.

I was recently told that the justification for passing this planning permission was that ‘although the loss of a historic asset would occur, the financial return for the develop would be maximized under this scheme’. Forgive my ignorance, but you don’t need a planning system to enforce the rules of economic calculus. The planning system should literally be doing the opposite of this.