Historic mill building with links to Ted Hughes set to be turned into ten flats

Setbray Properties Ltd have been given permission to make the changes at four-storey Banksfield Mill, Midgley Road, Mytholmroyd, which is in the village’s Conservation area.

The company Sutcliffe and Farrar – the Farrar brothers were maternal uncles of the Mytholmroyd-born Poet Laureate Ted Hughes – occupied the premises from 1919.

Calderdale Council planners have approved proposals to convert the empty mill into ten flats, repurposing the 19th century building for the 21st century.

There are other heritage buildings nearby and changes will involve demolishing some dilapidated sections – but with few other external modifications, this will have a positive affect on the setting of neighbouring Mount Pleasant Mill, say supporting papers with the application drawn up by Mark Hide Associates.

Restoring the mill’s windows to their former appearance will also improve the appearance.

Securing of a long-term future for the building will be key to bringing these changes and turning it into new homes will do this, argued the applicant.

The council received four representations on the plans, two supporting the housing, one asking for preservation or recreation of swift nesting sites and one objection, including concerns about overlooking, parking and development disruption.

Its previous use as a clothing factory is now redundant, and the new use will generates sufficient value to justify the structural repairs – renovation is required to remedy some significant defects but very few interventions will be needed to the original fabric of the mill, said the application.

The building lends itself to conversion to apartments, having a good number of well-proportioned windows, it adds, and the large dressed stone arch surviving from an earlier engine house will form an impressive entrance, says the application.

According to the supporting statements, the original structures were almost certainly providing power to Mount Pleasant Mill in the heyday of the Industrial Revolution.

When four new bays and three upper storeys were added, this is when the building became a separate use, although remaining under the ownership of Mount Pleasant Mills and sharing a power source.

From 1890 the building was operated by clothes manufacturers J.& R. Redman Ltd, which started in Hebden Bridge in 1874.

The company had several premises in Hebden Bridge, Todmorden and Mytholmroyd and grew by 1890 to employ over 700 workers, becoming one of the largest employers in the “fustian” – textiles – trade.

In 1901 they became part of the English Fustian Manufacturing Co, say the papers. Sutcliffe Farrar was a clothing manufacturer started in 1919 by Walter and Thomas Farrar and their partner John Sutcliffe.

Planning officers agreed the application met the council’s, and national, policies and goals and agreed to permit the application.