Watch more of our videos on ShotsTV.com
and on Freeview 262 or Freely 565

Plans to convert part of a building close to the site of Halifax’s infamous gibbet into apartments have been submitted to Calderdale Council.

Mohammed Noukhez has applied to Calderdale Council seeking permission to partially change the use of Halifax Events Hall at Bedford Street, Halifax, into nine apartments, with associated off-street parking.

The building is close to a 15 foot high non-working replica of the town’s gibbet – on the site of the early form of guillotine-style punishment device – at the end of Bedford Street North at its junction with Gibbet Street.

According to a supporting design and access statement submitted with the application the conversion will produce six two-bedroom apartments, two one-bedroom apartments and one studio apartment.

A replica of the Gibbet, off Gibbet Street, Halifax. The original Halifax Gibbet, where offenders met their end by decapitation, was in use for around 400 years until the mid 1600s.

In heritage terms, the building does not fall within any conservation area but the remains of Halifax’s famous gibbet are close by, it says.

However, there will be no impact on this as the existing building will remain the same size as currently stands and will have minimal eternal development, according to the supporting statement.

A retail unit will remain as it is on the ground floor, with the first floor, accessed from two separate communal hallways, containing four two-bed apartments and one-bed studio apartment.

The second floor, also accessed from two separate communal hallways, will feature the remaining two two-bed apartments and one-bed apartments, if the plans are allowed.

The gibbet replica is close to Bedford Street, at Bedford Street North, Halifax. Picture: Google

Eleven parking spaces will be shared between the residential and retail portions of the building, says the statement.

The original Halifax Gibbet, where offenders met their end by decapitation, was in use for around 400 years until the mid 1600s.

By 1650 public opinion considered beheading to be an excessively severe punishment for petty theft and use of the gibbet was forbidden by Oliver Cromwell, Lord Protector of the Commonwealth of England.

It was subsequently dismantled.

The stone base was rediscovered and preserved in about 1840, and the replica was erected on the site in 1974. The names of 52 people known to have been beheaded by the device are listed on a nearby plaque.

The full application, numbered 23/00025/FUL, can be seen on the council’s Planning Portal.

Plans revealed to create flats near Halifax gibbet