COUNCIL bosses are awaiting an expert verdict on proposals for Castle Hill before deciding the landmark’s future.
Tentative plans for a restaurant and bar at Huddersfield’s best-known beauty spot were put forward last year.
Huddersfield architecture firm One Seventeen AD handed a report to Kirklees Council arguing that the plan was financially viable.
The council passed the report to Humberts Leisure, a firm of specialist chartered surveyors and international advisers in leisure business and property, to be assessed.
Its experts are expected to deliver their judgement on whether the plans could work within a matter of weeks.
Clr Christine Stanfield, the council’s Cabinet member for regeneration, said: “We can’t start to make decisions until the viability of the plan has been established.”
Castle Hill has been at the centre of controversy since brothers Mick and Barry Thandi acquired the old hotel that stood there in 1998.
The brothers, operating under business name the Thandi Partnership had initial redevelopment plans rejected.
But in 2002 planners agreed to extension work, including 10 bedrooms.
Demolition work started on part of the hotel the following year, but complaints that too much of the old hotel was being ripped down and the size of the new one led to work being stopped in 2004. The whole new structure was pulled down by June 2005.
