A major debate on new vision for town

Sep 23 2008 by Neil Atkinson, Huddersfield Daily Examiner

A MAJOR debate about the future of Huddersfield takes place this week.

And the event, hosted on Thursday by Huddersfield Civic Society, comes at an opportune time.

Planning committee members meet earlier that day and are expected to give the go-ahead to the hugely-ambitious Waterfront Quarter plan, for a sprawling site between Manchester Road and Chapel Hill.

The project – which includes a new home for Kirklees College and hundreds of apartments – is just one of several multi-million pound schemes in the pipeline.

Some are already under way, including the £4m revamp of St George’s Square and the revival of the former railway warehouse.

But much larger schemes are still to be decided, with controversial views for and against many of them.

They include plans for an extension of the Kingsgate shopping centre, put forward by the retail bosses, and a massive development of Queensgate, to include a revamp of the Market Hall and a new library and arts centre, proposed by Kirklees Council.