Kirklees Council is still confident it can deliver a multi-million-pound scheme for Huddersfield’s Market, despite rejection from the government’s Levelling Up fund.
Had the bid been successful, the market at Northumberland Street would have received £18m from the government’s £4.8bn cash pot to restore the historic premises. The grade II listed building would have been transformed into a food hall with the capacity to seat 300 people and have nine stalls with the outdoor space near Tesco used as an open market.
Though government funding was denied, the council is exploring alternative avenues in the hopes it can deliver the project as planned.
At yesterday’s meeting of the council’s cabinet, Cllr John Lawson (Lib Dem, Cleckheaton) asked whether the council had a plan B for the market in sight.
Cllr Graham Turner, Cabinet Member for Regeneration responded and said: “We’re looking at all options, we’re looking at options of possible external funding from elsewhere. I am disappointed we didn’t get it, I mean we’ve put eight bids in now and got one out of eight which personally speaking, doesn’t feel very much like levelling up because what we got was a relatively small scheme in levelling up terms.”
Cllr Lawson followed up and asked whether the scheme would be scaled back from the original plans.
In response, Cllr Turner said: “If there is alternative funding out there or partners we can work with on the development then we’d like to push on with the plans as it stood.”
He added: “Our ambition, as the ambition of this cabinet has been for the last few years, is to invest in Kirklees and drive the local economy forward and that remains the plan.”
Leader of the Council, Shabir Pandor, said: “This time round we put four bids forward. The Batley bid was successful which was really, really appreciated but the bid for Marsden Mills wasn’t successful, the bid for the Penistone line that was a really well-written, well-presented bid which was really disappointing that was not successful along with the Huddersfield market bid which was unsuccessful.
“I know a number of other authorities were in the same situation and I’ve asked some of our external advisors outside the council, how much is it costing local authorities to put these bids in and they’ve said around £24m and a lot of them haven’t got anything.”
Cllr Pandor added that Levelling Up shouldn’t be a “beauty contest” and said: “It should be based on need, it should be based on robust evidence and that is something that, at least if we’ve got that, then we won’t need to go through the beauty contest and put a lot of money and a lot of resource in with the result that we haven’t got anything.”
Out of the council’s four bids placed to the second round of Levelling Up in August last year, £12m plans to regenerate Batley town centre were the only ones to be approved. This made Kirklees the only council in West Yorkshire to be successful in this round of the Levelling Up process.
Aside from plans for Huddersfield Market, the £48m bid to improve railway connections between Huddersfield, Barnsley and Sheffield and the £5.6m bid for the conversion of Marsden Mills were also turned down.
