New life has been breathed into a once-neglected corner of Huddersfield.
The final phase of the Yorkshire Housing Poplar development, a £1.6m complex of 15 stone-built one and two bedroom apartments, is now complete and ready for people to move in.
The flats – along with some opened in 2011 – replaced some of Huddersfield’s worst housing.
Poplar Street and Gelder Terrace in Moldgreen were formerly home to rows of tenement buildings.
The original Poplar Estate, which was built in 1914, consisted of 60 flats and six houses.
Kirklees spent £150,000 demolishing the old housing in 2010 after the derelict homes became a haunt for drug addicts and arsonists.
But they had a history. It was in 1911 that Huddersfield Corporation’s Housing and Town Planning Committee gave approval to build the first two blocks of 20 tenement flats.
The whole scheme was planned to be a four-block development of much-needed two-storey housing for workmen on the site of the old Moldgreen gasworks off Poplar Street.
Rents for the tenements were set at 3s 9d for the upper deck and 3s 6d for the lower. Now the new flats complement Phase One of the development, which completed in 2011 offering 37 two bedroom flats.
The Poplar development was built on the site of the derelict Poplar Gelder Estate tenements, which had been empty since the 1970s.
It has breathed new life into an area which had become notorious for drug use and crime.
The homes will provide much-needed social housing. They have been designed to be energy efficient to help keep down bills and have achieved Secured by Design accreditation, which means residents can be confident they are living in a secure home.
The scheme was developed in partnership with Huddersfield-based Termrim Construction and Bowman Riley architects.
The project received some funding from the Homes and Communities Agency and was supported by Kirklees Council as part of drive to offer more affordable accommodation to people living and working in Huddersfield.
