Councillors give OK to new children’s centre

Oct 24 2008 by Barry Gibson, Huddersfield Daily Examiner

PARENTS and children will benefit from a new children’s centre.

Councillors voted yesterday to approve plans for the centre at Farfield Road in Almondbury, bringing an end to a long-running controversy.

Last year Kirklees Council proposed opening a combined children’s centre and library at the derelict Farfield Road site.

But this would have meant closing the village’s historic library at Stocks Walk, an architectural treasure which was opened in 1904 with funding from Scottish-American businessman Andrew Carnegie.

Kirklees Council chiefs eventually agreed the library could remain at Stocks Walk after more than 1,000 people signed a petition protesting against the closure.

Yesterday’s Huddersfield Planning Sub-committee unanimously approved plans for the children’s centre on the old Fusseys allotment site at Farfield Road.