Cabinet approves grant for new event space in St. Peter’s Gardens, Huddersfield
Cabinet has just approved a grant for the creation of a brand new event space in St. Peter’s Gardens, in Huddersfield.
What is St. Peter’s Gardens?
The area around St. Peter’s Church (also known as the Huddersfield Parish Church) is already a favourite of creatives, and home to an interesting and unique set of independent businesses, restaurants, shops, bars and cafés, as well as the popular open market.
St. Peter’s Gardens is one of the key areas highlighted for improvement as part of the Huddersfield Blueprint – our plan for more than ten years of investment to breathe new life into Huddersfield town centre.
As well as its inclusion in the Huddersfield Blueprint, St. Peter’s Gardens is also part of the green network supporting our Station to Stadium plans, and as part of the ‘Golden Routes’ programme approved by Cabinet in September 2020. It’s also included in the Kirklees Highway Design Guide.
Basically, we think it’s very important to invest here as we improve Huddersfield town centre!
What’s happened so far?
In October 2020, St. Peter’s Church was granted planning permission to create an area for multi-functional events, and for church parking when required. We’ve been working with key stakeholders – including the Parish Church, a registered charity – to develop concepts for this space and the wider gardens.
What does the grant mean?
Today, Cabinet approved a grant of £471,900 to the Parish Church.
This grant will be used to deliver the first phase of work on St. Peter’s Gardens – the multi-use event space, which will sit next to the church and within the wider gardens.
The grant is made up of £350,000 of capital funding from the UK Shared Prosperity Fund (UKSPF), which has been provided from the Mayoral Combined Authority and which Cabinet allocated to this project in October last year. It also includes another £121,900 allocated for the ‘Golden Routes Capital Programme’.
David Shepherd, Strategic Director for Growth & Regeneration, says:
“It’s exciting to see another piece fall into place for the Huddersfield Blueprint.
What we’re doing here – and elsewhere in Huddersfield and Kirklees as a whole – is creating multi-functional spaces that suit a vibrant, modern-day town centre. We want to breathe new life into Huddersfield and help local businesses thrive, with a truly varied offering and developments that will stand the test of time for years to come.
It’ll be great to work closely with the Parish Church and see this new space in St. Peter’s Gardens brought to life.”