Architect slates new Queensgate

Jan 17 2009 by Henryk Zientek, Huddersfield Daily Examiner

A LEADING architect has launched a broadside at Kirklees Council’s £200m Queensgate Revival scheme.

Irena Bauman, a partner at Leeds-based Bauman Lyons Architecture and an adviser to the Government, said proposals to revamp Huddersfield’s Queensgate and Piazza areas “come up short” and need more work to create “a good piece of urban design”.

Her comments follows a review by experts at the Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment last year, which branded the scheme “crude” and “inelegant” and claimed it was “not of sufficient quality to bring the intended benefits to this part of Huddersfield”.

Writing in Renewal & Regeneration magazine, Ms Bauman said a key aim of the Queensgate Revival project was to provide a “critical mass” of new retail space to make Huddersfield more attractive as a local shopping destination.

She said the scheme had resolved technical difficulties associated with the geography of the site, but added: “A considerable amount of development work is still needed to create a good piece of urban design.”

The council’s scheme, designed by a firm of architects in Manchester, includes developing a new a new library, art gallery and information centre, a three-storey department store, a hotel, flats homes, bars, restaurants and up to 900 parking spaces and alterations to the listed market hall.