Council set to approve plans for former Sunday school building

A controversial bid to turn a former Sunday school in a Bradford listed building into an education and training centre has won the support of council officers.

Bradford Council is being asked to grant planning permission to change the use of The Old Sunday School in Bakes Street from offices to a non residential education and training centre with some offices.

Councillors will be advised to grant planning permission when Bradford Council’s area planning panel for the centre of the city meets today.

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If the application is approved, the building would provide a base for a charity called The Himmat Project, which provides services for young people such as after school activities and homework support.

It currently operates from within the YMCA building on Dorset Street in Little Horton, another site in Girlington and a site in Halifax.

According to a report to be presented to councillors, the project only operates during term time and of the staff relocating to the site only two travel to work by car.

The grade II listed former United Reform Church, which is a two storey stone building, was last used as offices and is within the Great Horton conservation area.

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Bradford Council has received two emails from ward councillors objecting to the proposals.

Several applications have been refused on the site and critics claim the proposal “does not appear to have changed.”

They say that the previous concerns about the proposal’s impact on highway safety and parking remain.

A report to be considered by the area planning panel says that Bakes Street is a narrow access road “barely wide enough for two vehicles to pass alongside one another”.

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The document also says the site has some informal parking that has potential for accommodating between five and 10 vehicles although turning in the site is restricted.

Bradford Council’s highways officer, who advised that the proposal would need to provide 13 car parking spaces, has objected based on the impact of the development on highway and pedestrian safety.

However, the planning applications only includes five car parking spaces.

According to the report: “The highways officer has advised that the application results in a shortfall of parking spaces and would be detrimental to highway safety as a result of vehicles having to reverse out of Bakes Street on to Great Horton Road.”

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But it also says that accident reports dating back to the year 2000 do not show any incidents where vehicles entering or exiting Bakes Street have been involved in accidents and that the proposed use is “unlikely” to generate large amounts of traffic in a highly accessible location” and is “unlikely to result in significant harm to highway safety”.

In recent years there have been several bids to use the site for various purposes, initially for an Islamic teaching and prayer facility and then for community centre uses which included provision for late-night gatherings.

An application to change the use of the vacant offices to a community centre was refused last year.

According to the report, the previous applications proposed to operate a community centre from the site “which was likely to attract members of the public without appointment”.

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It says that the proposed use will only attract people directly involved with the facility so it will be possible to manage the parking and access arrangements “without resulting in conflict with members of the public”.

The current bid proposes opening the new service between 8am and 7pm, Monday to Saturday – which officers deem to be “appropriate” in the location.

The report concludes the application is considered to provide a use for the vacant grade II listed building and is not considered to result in any significant harm to highway safety, neighbours’ amenities or visual amenity.