Two holes in a car park provide enough evidence that the development of a 72-bed apartment building has begun – planners have agreed.
In March 2020 Bradford Council approved plans for a seven-storey apartment building on to car park behind Sunbridge Halls on Sunbridge Road.
One condition of the approval was that work on the development would need to begin within three years, by March 2023, or the permission would lapse.
This Summer a potential purchaser of the site, Dhanial Mohammad, applied to Bradford Council to argue that this work had begun before that date, and so the permission for the land was still valid.
Although the car park is empty and undeveloped, they argued two holes that had been excavated on the site before March showed work had begun.
A report by a surveyor who visited in March said: “The excavations have commenced to the Vaughan Street elevation. Phase 1 and phase 2 pad works have been excavated. These are required to be excavated down to form strata.”
This week Bradford Council planners agreed that the works meant planning was still valid, saying: “The development was started within the prescribed period.”
When the Local Democracy Reporting Service visited the site on Thursday, it appeared that apart from the two excavated holes, one of which contained a soiled mattress, there had been no further work on the site.
