Greenhead College

Greenhead College

Partial redevelopment of site including a new 4-storey building

To see the full application click here.

Huddersfield Civic Society supports Greenhead College revamp plans but with some concerns.

Huddersfield Civic Society welcomes the intention to improve facilities at Greenhead college. The site has a prominent position in the Greenhead Park conservation area and we appreciate the consideration given in the submitted design to not impinge upon views from nearby Greenhead Park.

The plan will see the demolition of prefabricated buildings from the 1960s to make way for construction of a new four-storey science block for 15 specialist biology and chemistry labs and classrooms. It will be built on the existing car park and the current entrance will be made pedestrian-only.

A new car park will be built on the multi-use games area (MUGA) and the MUGA moved to vacant land elsewhere. An existing access from Greenhead Road, currently closed, will be re-opened to vehicles and will be used as a new entrance to the car park.

We are disappointed to see in the submitted Arboricultural Impact Assessment (AIA) the number of trees to be felled but appreciate that this is required in order to maintain the current level of off-road parking provision, given the already considerable overflow of parking associated with the college onto nearby residential streets.

We do have the following concerns which we hope can be addressed:

1) The very low level of electric vehicle charging points (16) to be included in the construction of new car parking for c160 vehicles.
2) The very low level of ‘long stay’ cycle provision. There are only 30 cycle places for 2,600 pupils plus c185fte staff. This is despite Kirklees Council proposing significant improvements to cycle routes on nearby Trinity Street and across the ring road to the town centre.
3) We can find no mention of how the carbon impact from the proposed tree felling and scrub removal is to be mitigated
4) The lack of clarity behind the claim in the summary of the submitted Ecological Impact Assessment (EIA) that ‘the proposed development delivers a net gain for biodiversity’.

In the first two cases we believe that the proposed provision is woefully below what should be expected in a development intended to last for many years and ask that provision is increased substantially to reflect even short-term goals for increased use of e-vehicles and of Active Travel.

In the fourth case we note that there is no mention in the EIA of the number of trees to be felled as per the AIA. Given the felling of trees and an overall increase in landspace to be covered in concrete or tarmac, we would hope that the workings behind a claim of biodiversity INCREASE would be clear to all readers.

Kirklees Local Plan Policy LP30 requires there to be Biodiversity Net Gain and we ask that calculations are resubmitted that match the reduction in tree cover and increase in concrete/tarmac cover to ‘habitat units’ in a manner that the reader can follow.