Lost Hebden Bridge street could be brought back to life

Now a locally based community group has plans which could see High Street live again. Their proposal would see much-needed affordable rental housing provided for families and young people priced out of the local housing market.

Calder Valley Community Land Trust, a member-led charity based in the Upper Valley, has been working for more than two years on ambitious plans for new housing at High Street, which is parallel to Bridge Lanes at the western end of Hebden Bridge.

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The proposals have been modified following public consultations in 2016 and 2017 and now the Trust is almost ready to submit them for planning permission.

A final public consultation is being arranged for Saturday April 21 at 11am, in the Methodist Church Hall in Hebden Bridge close to the site.

As the plans stand, the old densely-packed back-to-backs of High Street will be replaced with a much smaller terraced development of twenty-five homes. David Nugent, one of the trustees, says that parking provision on the site has been increased, following feedback at previous consultations, and the density of the buildings near the Heptonstall Road reduced.

David Nugent said: “Rebuilding what was once an important residential area of Hebden Bridge is perhaps a symbolic sign that the bad old days of the 1960s and 1970s when the town was facing economic catastrophe have gone for ever.

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"The fact that the new High Street will not be a commercial development put up by an external developer but one created by a not-for-profit voluntary group means that the whole community can have a direct say in how we build new homes locally which will still be lived in a hundred years from now.”

The plans will be on show in Hebden Bridge library all day on Friday April 27.