Plan earmarks two new garden suburbs

South east Calderdale has been earmarked for two new garden suburbs to help address West Yorkshire’s wider housing shortage.

Karen Lythe, Assistant Director for Economy, Housing & Investment at Calderdale Council, told delegates at our West Yorkshire Economic Growth Conference that the borough’s draft local plan had identified Brighouse and Elland for the two extensions containing a total of 2,300 new homes. The area also contains an advanced manufacturing enterprise zone with land for half million square ft of business space.

The allocations are outlined in Calderdale’s draft new plan, which is due to be submitted to the government for inspection by the end of 2018 a target date of adoption in 2021. Overall the plan sets out allocations for 9,000 new homes and 97 ha of employment land.
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Lythe also said the council is working with Sport England on a new leisure centre at Northbridge incorporating a swimming pool and other facilities. And she said that consent had been granted for the first site in the Halifax Living Project, which has a pipeline of 2 250 new city centre properties.

But congestion is a “real issue” in Halifax, Lythe said: “It’s not the best encouragement to invest in the borough.”

She said the investment to tackle the problem includes plans for a new train station at Elland together with bigger and better trains to service Halifax town centre, which has the busiest two platform station in Yorkshire. Lythe also said there are plans investment on the A29 and improvements for the A629.

Ed Ellerington, Managing Director of Packaged Living, said the recently launched build to rent specialist had conducted a successful capital raising programme over the last three months.  He said that blocks being developed for Palmer’s Packaged Living’ are tailor designed for the needs of private rented households.

They will incorporate features such as loading bays, larger service lifts and wider corridors, which will make it easier for tenants to move in and out of the building.

Ellerington, who recently joined Palmer from Britain’s biggest private landlord Grainger, said: “Historically, we never looked at that because nobody has actually operated these buildings.”

Each building will also contain bookable dining rooms, library corners and outdoor terraces. But he said that they would not incorporate cinemas and gyms because such facilities already often exist in the areas that the schemes are located in. And investors demanding that tenants put down a deposit is a ‘mad idea’ in the current day and age, said Ellerington: “No-one asks me to put ten per cent of the value of the car down when I rent a Zipcar: we’ve moved so much further in every other industry.”

But Brexit clouded prospects longer term for the sector, he said: “There are dark times looming that we will have to get through.”

Thomas Weldon, regional director of Henry Boot Developments, said that a lack of infrastructure is holding back development along the M62 corridor in west Yorkshire.

He said Henry Boot is about to deliver more than 2m sq ft of employment space at the Wakefield Hub, which is located at junction 30 of the M62, in units of up to 600,000 sq ft.

There is “strong demand” from occupiers in the region but sites are not coming forward due to a lack of infrastructure, said Weldon: “A new motorway junction to unlock these sites is important,” he said. Questioning whether sufficient ambition exists in west Yorkshire to drive growth, he pointed to the north east where the company has increased from 1m sq ft to 4m sq ft floorspace on a business park that it is delivering.

He said Henry Boot’s diverse portfolio also included The Chocolate Factory, a 185-appartment residential scheme in a converted former mill building acquired during the last downturn.

Gary Hetherington, chief executive of Leeds Rhinos & Yorkshire Carnegie, said that work is continuing on the refurbishment of Headingly’s rugby and cricket grounds.

Hetherington said that the latest phase of the £44m development is the replacement of the ground’s Northern stand with two new facilities. He said the ground is once again hosting Test match cricket regularly while the Leeds Rhino have been the most successful rugby club in the country for several years.
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