Castle Hill Proposed Development application by the Thandi Brothers

Application by The Thandi Partnership

Application number 2024/92517 (click on the link to see the full application). Variation of condition 17 (drainage) of previous permission 2018/93591 for erection of restaurant/café/bar, six guest rooms, exhibition/interpretation room, WCs, terrace, car parking and ancillary accommodation

Huddersfield Civic Society comments:

This appears to be a revision to the application from 2021 (originally dated 2018/93591) specifically for ‘variation of condition 17 (drainage) of previous permission 2018/93591 for erection of restaurant/café/bar, six guest rooms, exhibition/interpretation room, WCs, terrace, car parking and ancillary accommodation’.

Although this original application was granted permission by Kirklees Council – despite vigorous objections from HCS, Castle Hill Associates, Huddersfield & District Archaeological Society and many more – approval was still needed from Historic England (since it is a Scheduled Ancient Monument) and this  appears not to have been achieved.

HCS concurs with these comments submitted by a local councillor:

“Planning consent was granted on 10th February 2022 in relation to planning application 2018/93591 subject to conditions. In the delegated decision notice S106 Full permission dated 10th February 2022, it was noted that scheduled monument consent required from the Sec of State was outstanding. This consent remains outstanding and no such application has been made by the applicant.

“The applicant has had at least 2 years and 7 months (at the time of this submission) to have made such an application. Under planning permission 2018/93591, development is to commence within 3 years of the date planning permission was given and will expire on the 10th February 2025, in 5 months’ time. According to guidelines published by Historic England, it is illegal to carry out works to the schedule monument without consent.

“Consent cannot be given retrospectively and undertaking works before consent has been given is a criminal offence. According to information from Historic England, Scheduled Monument consent may take up to 13 weeks and Historic England have up to 42 days to submit draft advice to the Secretary of State. It is my view that if the applicants were genuinely interested in commencing works, that they would have already submitted an application to Historic England.”

The implication is that it is unlikely that the applicant can meet the legal requirements relating to the planning permission in the time required before the application deadline lapses. If this is so the civic society would request clarity on what future action can be implemented regarding this most controversial  proposal and therefore Huddersfield Civic Society asks that the request to remove the condition be refused.