Victorian Baths in Elland bulldozed without permission
Very sad to see the Victoria Baths in Elland being demolished this week due to structural instability.
There are not many towns that have been ruined to the extent that Elland has. The loss of industry and the town’s train station, followed by the cursory modernist regeneration of the 60s have left this small town without purpose and wholly deprived. Sadly this last remnant of the once striking town centre has been condemned, with the levelling process beginning before any permission has been granted. I suppose expedience like this is at the councils discretion, particularly as it falls falls within a conservation area.
Apparently it would have cost a million pounds to maintain the structure. A (dubiously) large amount indeed, but how much will be spent on whatever new Community Centre/Elland Action Team facility will be built there instead. Maybe if it had gone to tender on a wider platform or a private owner could have been found, slightly more of Elland town centre wouldn’t be condemned to rubble.
Demolition of a 19th Century stately home for a car park
I’ve had a bit of a break from blogging as I’ve been so busy with a new job (in a planning consultancy – behind the iron curtain so to speak).
So many interesting and needless applications in Yorkshire have been made over the last few weeks, with a wide tranche of demolitions planned, and most likely approved before the end of the year.
I can’t quite believe that the following has gone unnoticed by the Huddersfield press;
Application to demolish Dalton Grange House
The picture says it all. I do not need to explain why this is outrageous;
Syngenta, the applicant, is a major employer in Hddersfield, which I’m sure will result in the council subserviently complying to all demands set out on the table. The applicant even has the gall to acknowledge that the land will be used as a car park to serve the nearby stadium. Thats right, a stately home from the 19th century is to be demolished to extend a car park.
Needless to say the Victorian Society share my concern/apoplexy and are helping with the listing process.
This case also highlights that awful clause in planning law – you do not need planning permission to demolish if you do not intend to build on the land. Permission is only required for the demolition process itself. If a building is not listed or within a conservation area (which somehow Dalton Grange isn’t) then it is yours to level as you wish.
Hopefully the bats will save the day, as concerns abut loss of habitat have been raised.
For a building that was functioning as an events venue until very recently, this would be a preventable loss of a building that means so much to so many.
St Mary’s School and Nunnery
Application submitted from The Diocese of Leeds to demolish a 19th century school and nunnery:
http://www2.kirklees.gov.uk/business/planning/application_search/detail.aspx?id=2014%2f91709
This building is in a conservation area and forms part of the industrial fabric of this corner of Batley. Even the heritage consultant, who noramally dispell any idea of historic merit acknowledge that this would be a huge loss.
No plans to build on the site, so I can only assume that scorched earth is more marketble. So many public buildings are being sold off for housing land, and ironically when a dearth of school places exists; a situation which will only worsen. Still they get rid of these functional buildings. Kirklees, you will rue the day.
Interesting cottage in Illingworth
To appreciate the poor urbanism of the past 100 years, as a result of the housing production line, and car based lifestyle, Illingworth village to the north of Halifax is the place to go. Endless cul-de-sacs atop a windswept moor demonstrate that the concept of a ‘housing crisis’ has always been fed to us, and will never go away. This will always be the recourse of developers.
A final remnant of old Illingworth is to go soon:
Would be awkward to restore to residential use, but old buildings always are. It is what makes them appealing. The converse is the boring monotony of housing estates.
Last of the commercial high street, Spring Vale
The former butchers shop on the high street of Spring Vale is to be demolished, along with the neighbouring commercial buildings. The planning statement gives us the reason that ‘current local market conditions will not support the reinstatement of the butchers shop’. But why limit our imagination to a purveyor of meat? I’m no shopkeeper, but high street commercial property is quite flexible. You could sell almost anything from this shop. Aren’t we trying to encourage small commercial centres that complement the larger hubs nearby?
Nope, knock it down, build some houses quickly and advertise them as being close to the M1.
4 townhouses – Spring Vale, Penistone
This was once a high street. There will be nothing left of it once these buildings are gone. A village becomes a suburb.
Ambitious restoration of a complex industrial site
For every developer who clings to the argument that financially viable development requires a flattened site, covered in detached dwellings and double garages, uniform in design, to be built from the cheapest possible materials – i give you this scheme which was submitted to Leeds council this week:
Redevelopment of Sunny Bank Mills
The owners of this now defunct industrial complex could very easily hand their land over to an asset management company, who would offer it to a developer, raising it to the ground, as we see each week in the UK.
Instead, they have been upstanding in their sympathy for history and place, and have clearly put a lot of time and effort into developing a mixed use scheme that retains most of the original historic fabric of the complex, and most importantly, is quite clearly going to offer a hefty margin on their efforts.
I can not commend the actions of the landowner enough, in taking a risk, being innovative, and thinking beyond his bank balance. If anyone needs a case study to demonstrate that demolition of a seemingly esoteric building is avoidable, this is it.
Lets hope this sets a precedent in the industrial North.
Demolish Halifax textile mill for 22 houses
36 Textile mills remain in Halifax of the hundreds that would once punctuate this industrial landscape.
Spring Hall Mills is one of the remaining mills and has been derelict for some time, but the building and particularly the domineering Mill Street main edifice is robust and could very easily be converted into flats.
Application for full demolition can be found here.
I fully understand the developer wanting to use the workshop space to the rear as a brownfield site, but it would be quite easy (and lucrative) to use the main building to supplement the 22 houses will a number of flats. This takes care of tenure mix, affordability quotas, and heritage contributions.
The footprint of the front building could be saved at the expense of two detached houses.
Although architecturally unremarkable, the mill is vital to this fantastic example of stone built landscape of terraced streets converging on the economic lifeblood that is the mill. This streetscape is West Yorkshire embodied.
Developer North Point Living, please keep it in tact (and increase your returns in the process)
M62 corridor towns
Those poor old towns along the M62 corridor really will bear the brunt of development in West Yorkshire over the coming decade. Im sure developers will make spurious claims of sustainable locations, but in reality, the West Yorkshire lifestyle will become more dependent on the M62, for going to work, for shopping, and for getting home. The sprawl in these towns means you can barely differentiate between the likes of Morley or Birstall or Birkinshaw any more. If only a strong green belt, and an inviolable conservation area status was given to the highstreets in these towns, perhaps they would be more than dormitories of Leeds.
47 Dwellings on Brownfield land in Drighlington.
The designs are as good as you will get from a volume housebuilder, so even I concede things are improving. Yet still there is no justification to knock everything down. Goodbye to this little gem:
I would welcome this development were they to maintain the street front, transform the cul-de-sac into a through road, and be extremely sympathetic with building materials. A step in the right direction, but still a long road ahead.
Hidden farmhouse with potential in Keighley
An application to Demolish a workshop and a “house” has been submitted this week to Bradford. It turns out that the said house is a well hidden historic farmhouse. It is in disrepair, but I would advise the applicant that more value can be added to this site by retaining the building and augmenting the site with vernacular new builds.
Worthville Farm near Dawson Road in Keighley is a hidden gem amongst 20th century suburban sprawl.
The plans suggest that the footprint of the old farm building would be within the gardens of the proposed 8 dwellings.
Why not keep the farm house and build around it?
If anyone has any other info regarding this building, please get in touch
Demolishing a Pub…to extend a car park
Closed pubs can be awkward to convert due to large car parks and difficulty in adapting, and so the option to demolish is often taken, as I have highlighted almost each week on this blog. This is unforgivable but at least is tenuously justified. To demolish a victorian pubic house to extend a car park is simply unacceptable:
The Ring of Bells in Cleckheaton seems lijkely to succumb to this fate.
This building is vital to the quickly eroding street front, and has more economic potential standing and waiting for a few years for a use, than as a tarmac recess.
I can’t imagine Kirklees council allowing this to pass, but sadly the lack of a local plan will ensure democracy in all matters of spatial planning is not realised. Everyone in West Yorkshire could oppose this and it would still happen.
