Former police station set to be converted into apartments with houses built on council car parks

Councillors have been recommended to approve a scheme to build 33 flats at the old station on Wood Street. The plan also involves building 29 townhouses on council-owned car parks at Rishworth Street and Gills Yard. A planning application by developers Rushbond will be considered by the council’s planning and highways committee on Thursday (December 15).

The scheme is part of regeneration plans for the city’s ‘Civic Quarter’. If approved, flats would be built in the former police station, which was built in 1908. The application involves building properties on all four floors, with a communal garden at the rear, plus a gym and cycles storage area in the basement. Apartments will also be built in the adjoining former ‘Superintendents house’.

An annexe, which was built in the 1930s for public health offices of the old West Riding County Council, would be renovated for either office or residential use. A report states: “At ground floor the police holding cells are to be removed which will open up part of the rear of the site.”

Nine three-bedroom townhouses are proposed to be built behind the police station at Gills Yard. Part of the existing car park is to be retained for private parking. The third part of the scheme is to redevelop the public car park on Rishworth Street. Two rows of terraced houses are proposed. The first, Gills Mews, is to front on to Rishworth Street and comprises a row of 12 townhouses. A second row of eight two-storey properties would form Gills Place.

The site, including all buildings and car parks are currently owned by the council. Rushbond was chosen to deliver the project after a tendering process. Two letters of objection have been submitted by residents with concerns over loss of public parking in the city centre and the affordability of the properties. West Yorkshire Archaeology Advisory Service (WYAAS) has said there could be “buried medieval and post medieval remains” in Gills Yard.

The organisation has called for an “archaeological evaluation” to be carried out before any work begins. WYAAS also says some original details survive in the old police station and public health offices and has called for photographic recording during the conversion works. Wakefield Civic Society (WCS) has backed the proposals.

The report says: “WCS welcomes the introduction of high-quality residential properties to the city centre including bringing a sustainable new use to an empty building. The opportunity to understand what lies beneath Gills yard with archaeological evaluation should be seized.”