A SEVEN-storey apartment block, a 136-space car park, shops, offices and a residents' swimming pool have been incorporated in the latest £12 million scheme for redeveloping Garden Street, Hebden Bridge.
But the project rests on getting permission to rebuild a huge retaining wall, part of which engineers say is "in very poor condition".
Calderdale Council put the Garden Street car park up for sale in the summer of 2004 with a view to getting firms
interested in redeveloping the former housing site.
An imaginative scheme designed by Hebden Bridge company Studio Baard was chosen in October 2005 and it has since been working on the details.
It has now applied for planning permission to rebuild the 150-year-old wall that supports Commercial Street, the main road to Keighley.
The developer plans to construct five blocks of flats on the site, rising from four to seven storeys with 80 underground public parking spaces, accessed by a lift, 11 at street level to replace the 55 currently available and 45 more spaces for residents.
"The amount of development has to be appropriate for the location and must also support the cost of the car park and repairs to the retaining wall," according to the Studio Baad report.
"High buildings are not unusual in Hebden Bridge and the scale is broken up by the different levels at which they are approached and viewed."
The council has insisted the development – the biggest in the town for 50 years – should be both traditional and contemporary, dramatic and modern.
The full article contains 264 words and appears in Evening Courier newspaper.
