Change of use from dwellings (use class C3) to residential care home (use class C2) Kirkgate Residence, Flats 37-48, Lancaster House, Oldgate, Huddersfield, HD1 6HQ

Application number 2025/62/90296/W (click on link to see full application) On behalf of Huddersfield Civic Society: 

This application seeks to convert 12 ‘maisonettes’ across three floors in the end part of a town-centre building, backing onto Huddersfield’s inner ring road, into four care home rooms on the first floor, four further care home rooms on the second floor and four other rooms on the ground floor. On page 7 the applicant describes the site as ‘under 25 square metres’ which, if correct, would mean that each room is no more than 6.25sqm. Even if this is an error, the absence of any measurements on the submitted plans mean it is impossible to ascertain the actual room sizes although, from an external view of the building, the rooms look to be very small. 

Essentially the ‘before’ and ‘after’ plan for each room is unchanged other than the proposed removal of living facilities from the four ground floor rooms. Essentially, this is thus a request to reclassify eight existing small first-floor and second-floor maisonettes as identically configured small care home rooms plus four staff/shared resident rooms on the ground floor. 

The Society notes that the proposed configuration falls woefully short of the standards required to register any care facility with the CQC as in documents such as https://www.gov.uk/find-licences/registration-of-residential-care-homes-england

To be a Class C2 Residential Care Home, this building would need a lift, access to safe outdoor space etc.

Huddersfield Civic Society therefore requests that this application be refused as it fails to meet the requirements for a residential care home.