A BUSY street in Huddersfield has closed for six months.

Contractors asked Kirklees Council for permission to shut a stretch of Lord Street while they demolish St Peter’s Buildings .

Part of the block runs alongside Lord Street.

The road will be closed between St Peter’s Street and Northumberland Street and diversions will be in operation via Southgate and Byram Street.

Details of the road closure have been circulated to businesses in the area by the demolition firm Squibb Demolition Ltd.

A spokesman for the firm said: “To enable the buildings to be safely demolished it will be necessary to close Lord Street for the duration of the work, which will take six months.

“It will also be necessary to close a section of Primitive Street from the middle of July for three months to enable another section of the works to be completed.

“We will keep businesses updated on the works on a monthly basis.”

Work is expected to start shortly on the site.

The entire group of buildings within the block bordered by Northumberland Street , St Peter’s Street, Primitive Street and Lord Street – which includes some historic architecture – will be demolished.

The top floors of the multi-storey block at the centre of the site will be demolished by hand before machines are brought in to take down the lower floors.

The site is owned by the Homes and Communities Agency (HCA), a branch of the Government.

Kirklees Council has insisted that when the site is cleared a car park is created for town-centre shoppers and workers.

The block, within the Huddersfield Town Centre Conservation Area, contains the 1889-built Sunday School building and a 1960s tower block, formerly home to the YMCA.

The 1964 built St Peter’s buildings were also once the site of Huddersfield Polytechnic and one of the town’s first Chinese restaurants, the Hong Kong.

But the buildings have all been empty for some time and redevelopment has been deemed economically unviable.

Chris Marsden, chairman of Huddersfield Civic Society , said they hoped some memorial stones could be rescued from the former Northumberland Street Primitive Methodist Sunday School.

The HCA, which took on the site after Yorkshire Forward was scrapped, has said that revamping the existing site would cost £11m in contrast with just a £¾m price tag for pulling the whole lot down.