Bradford 1970s 'utopian estate' set to be flattened to make way for modern housing

An application to flatten the mothballed Ripleyville Estate off Spring Mill Street and build 73 homes in its place has been approved by Bradford Council.

Built using then in favour neighbourhood design plans, the estate, near Manchester Road, is a collection of flats and houses based around courtyards, shared gardens and pathways - constructed to separate pedestrians from cars.

The Ripleyville estate

The so called Radburn Design was meant to create vibrant communities, but soon fell out of favour due to concerns about crime and the isolation of such developments from surrounding neighbourhoods.

Ripleyville, like other Radburn estates, has suffered from high levels of anti-social behaviour in recent years.

Last September, Accent Housing revealed plans to replace the entire site, 164 homes, with a development of modern social housing.

That application has been approved by planning officers at Bradford Council, who highlighted that the new plans include features that are more desirable in modern housing estates - including energy-efficient homes, traffic calmed streets and "rainwater gardens".

Ripleyville dates back to the 1860s, and was designed as an industrial model village built for philanthropist Henry William Ripley, manager of the Bowling Dyeworks.

It included almost 200 workmen's cottages, a school, church and allotments, with a rail station following in the 1870s.

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By the 1950s the estate had lost some of its charm - with many homes still gas powered and some properties appearing neglected.

Many of the homes on the site were demolished by the Bradford Corporation in the 70s under its "Bradford Development Plan" - which involved the clearing of a number of Victorian estates.

An area of land between Baird Street and Ripley Street was flattened to make way for what the application describes as a "new utopian estate creating a range of larger apartments".

The 1970s homes were built using the Radburn design.

The Ripleyville estate

Accent's application criticised this design, saying: "It is often referred to as an urban design layout that is typified by failure because of its laneways and interconnected green squares being used as common entries and exists to houses - helping to isolate communities and encourage crime, with roads and car courts poorly surveilled".

Issues on the estate had "damaged the reputation of the area" - the company claimed.

The new development will be a mix of nine one-bed homes, 15 two-bed homes, 37 three-bed homes, six four-bed homes and six five-bed homes.

Approving the scheme, planning officers said: "A number of measures in response to the objective for ‘green streets’ have been included, and this is achieved through the inclusion of build-outs to accommodate street trees and rainwater gardens, the use of hedgerows and planting for garden boundaries, block paving for the streets and parking areas, narrowed and raised sections of carriageway at junctions, and a vegetated retaining wall to the parking court.

"A shared space area is proposed at the junction of Baird Street and Spring Mill Street to enable better connectivity with the existing play area and a potential new sensory garden. All of this will help to create attractive, people friendly, traffic calmed streets that will hopefully support social activity, healthy lifestyles and play."

Referring to the houses themselves, offers said: "The energy efficiency of the homes will go well beyond both current requirements and the forthcoming uplift in standards due to come into effect next year.

An artist's impression of the planned new housing

"In addition, the homes have been orientated to face south to maximise passive solar gain, and renewable energy technologies will be incorporated including air source and ground source heat pumps and photovoltaic panels."

The new homes will also have electric vehicle charging points.