Plan to build industrial development on long empty site is approved - again
Plans to re-develop a long empty Bradford site can now go ahead, after initially being halted by the Covid 19 pandemic.
In 2021 a planning application to build a new industrial estate just off Tong Street was approved by Bradford Council.
But the work never began, and the site has remained vacant ever since. The planning permission for multiple industrial units has since lapsed.
Last year S & W Properties submitted a new application for similar works to the site.
Those plans, which would see 13 industrial units built on the site, have now been approved. The site would also include 34 parking spaces.
The site, off Factory Street is a short distance from the Dudley Hill roundabout. It was once the site of Ackroyd Mills, which was destroyed by a huge blaze in 2011.
Between the 2021 industrial estate approval and the newly approved plans, another application for the site was submitted and approved. That would see the land be filled with storage units – operated by Twenty4 Secure Storage.
That planning permission is still extant.
The application said: “The family has owned the site for many years, and the site once was home to a five-storey red-brick mill.
“Unfortunately the Mill was subject to an arson attack over a decade ago, and the owners ‘lost’ a perfectly decent building which was prime for conversion.
“The site has lay dormant ever since, and once made safe (through demolition) has been targeted by fly-tippers and has encouraged anti-social behaviour.
“A previous planning application was submitted to and approved by Bradford Council in 2020. Unfortunately, due to the pandemic, the site was never started and now the planning application has lapsed. The new scheme proposal is the same.”
It says the applicants “want to develop the site to re-establish an ‘industrial use’ and produce an estate of quality buildings and surroundings, to enhance the streetscene and neighbourhood alike.”
The plans would include a number of “eco-measures” including bat boxes, bird boxes, eco-hedgehog nest boxes and bug hotels.
Approving the scheme, planning officers at Bradford Council said: “Planning policies and decisions should help create the conditions in which the businesses can invest, expand and adapt and that significant weight should be given to the need to support economic growth and productivity.
“The proposal will create 13 new units which will help meet these objectives creating purpose built facilities for businesses and generating new employment opportunities.”