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Town
centres used to be very lively places. Many tradesmen ran their
businesses from there and people still lived above the shop.
Huddersfield
was no exception to all this. Small cottages were pulled down in
the 1960s to make way for the ring-road and here, as elsewhere,
people moved out to peripheral estates.
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| A
Creative Loft apartment in Huddersfield |
In
recent years many of the mill buildings that over the years have
come to define the West Yorkshire landscape have been saved from
demolition by being converted into residential accommodation.
Now
there is a move to get people back into our towns and cities. The
former Friendly and Trades building in Northumberland Street is
the home of Creative Lofts, the first development of its kind in
the north of England.
This
Grade II listed building, built in 1861 as the Mechanics Institute,
had become unsightly. Now, with the help of various agencies, including
English Heritage the exterior of the building as been restored to
its former glory by the Places for People Group.
Inside
the building there are 21 apartments ranging from single studios
to two-bedroom flats with split level mezzanines. Rents are designed
to be affordable to people starting-up their own creative businesses
and all the apartments are connected to the internet. The Victorians
who first built the Mechanics Institute in the interests of their
own self-improvement would almost certainly have approved.
Nor
have all of Huddersfield's old yards been lost - one or two have
been improved as part of the recent Kirkgate shopping development.
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