Work begins on new Kirklees College campus at Chapel Hill

Nov 13 2009 by Barry Gibson, Huddersfield Daily Examiner

WORK begins today on a £70m campus for thousands of students.

Kirklees College is holding an official turf-cutting ceremony at Chapel Hill this afternoon.

The nine-storey building will replace the college’s current headquarters on New North Road in 2012.

And it means that Sellers Engineers Limited on Chapel Hill will have to find a new base next year – just two years short of its 100th birthday.

The company was set up in 1912 and current chairman David Armitage said: “It’s good to see a shovel going into the ground at last. It will be great for Huddersfield that people will see something positive happening and progress after all this time. Boards showing the plans for the site were put up when The Queen came to the University of Huddersfield in May 2007.

“This is positive news for the town and let’s hope all now goes to plan in terms of the timescale. It’s a tremendously exciting time for Kirklees College.

“It also means the start of the countdown to Sellers moving to a new location which will be sometime in the middle or towards the end of next year.”

Huddersfield MP Barry Sheerman will take part in today’s turf-cutting ceremony along with Kirklees Council leader Clr Mehboob Khan and college principal Chris Sadler to cut the first piece of turf.