Former Keighley College site health centre plans revealed

Plans to build a new health centre on the former Keighley College site at the corner of North Street and Cavendish Street date back years.

Next month a business case for the development will be presented to Government, which will decide whether to provide the scheme with funding through the £33m Towns Fund.

It is hoped £3.4m will be allocated by Government.

The former Keighley College site the centre would be built on. Many in the town, including MP Robbie Moore, want the site to remain green.

The plans have divided opinion.

The site has been grassed over since the college was demolished. Some, including Keighley MP Robbie Moore, have called for proposals to build on this site to be scrapped, arguing that it has become a valued area of green space.

Others say the town’s health facilities desperately need investment, and argue the college was the ideal location.

READ MORE: Keeping Keighley town centre site as green space could have 'significant financial implications' - according to report

Bradford Council has now released the first image of what the hub will look like.

The facility would include GP services, community care, mental health, dental care and a GP training hub. The Council says the scheme would also bring 200 jobs to the town, 50 of them being new posts.

A Health and Wellbeing Centre was one of seven projects listed for consideration when a bid was made to the Government’s Towns Fund for Keighley in 2021. The Keighley Towns Fund Board was successful in its application and the town is likely to receive grants of £33.6m for capital projects, part of which can be allocated to this scheme.

A board set up to develop plans for the site is submitting the design and business case for the scheme to Government next month.

It is estimated that the centre could be up and running by late 2025.

Councillor Alex Ross-Shaw, Portfolio Holder for Regeneration, Planning and Transport, said: “This is an exciting and much-needed facility for Keighley, bringing essential health services to the heart of the town, in easy reach of public transport.

"It also has the potential to be a major step in the regeneration of the town centre. We look forward to seeing the plans progress as we move through the process.”

However, Mr Moore said: “The Green Space on North Street is such a unique site that it forms the heart and soul of our town. I have constantly made my view clear that we must protect this site so that it can be utilised as a proper landscaped green space by the people of Keighley.

It is infuriating that throughout the whole of the Town’s Fund process, our local authority have not explored the potential of other town centre sites for the location of a new Health and Wellbeing Hub, the funding of which I helped secure through the Government’s Town’s Fund Deal.

This should not be an ‘either/or’ choice between protecting North Street Green Space and securing a Health and Wellbeing Hub as local Labour Councillors like to portray. Having the Health and Wellbeing Hub imposed on this site is yet another example of Labour-run Bradford Council running roughshod on people in Keighley, by not properly listening to the views of our town.

There are plenty of other sites in the centre of Keighley which could be considered for a Health and Wellbeing Hub. Therefore, I am continuing to campaign hard to make sure we have both the Health and Wellbeing Hub and the green space in the heart of Keighley, both of which can make such a positive impact on our town.”

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