Early April, on a gloriously sunny day, saw us visit Morley to learn about the Heritage Investment Fund which is forming one component of the Morley Town Deal. We walked around part of the town’s Conservation Area, expertly guided by Liam Riley, Regeneration Officer, at Leeds City Council, who showed us the heritage properties being targeted for intervention via the Fund.
In March 2021 the Government offered a Town Deal for Morley of £24.3 million intended to reinvigorate the market town through a clear programme of six projects, including work to improve transport links, create new public spaces, deliver adult education and job opportunities, and protect heritage buildings – all priorities raised during public consultation.
An allocation of £1.7 million has been made for a Heritage Investment Fund which is looking to consolidate and build on existing heritage conservation efforts and target properties within the Conservation Area along and around Queen Street, where Morley’s prominent and beautiful Grade I listed Town Hall stands surrounded by nineteenth-century buildings.
Grants will be offered to property owners to invest in reinstating traditional shop fronts and to conserve and restore external architectural features, such as windows, stonework, roofs and guttering, to designs and using materials befitting to the heritage streetscape in the Conservation Area.
Grant funding is available for 80% of the cost of the conservation works with property owners required to cover 20% of the costs.
Liam explained how the owners of targeted heritage properties have been approached to consider participating in building restoration. A shop front design and maintenance guide has been produced to help communicate and engage with property owners, providing a step-by-step guide on the process in relation to briefing architects, submitting planning applications and funding requirements.
Presently, there are twenty targeted properties in the pipeline at various stages of the engagement process. It was fantastic to see two premises where the scaffolding was up and work had just started on site. One of the buildings, previously vacant, is being brought back into use, providing new commercial space on four floors. Works involve roof repairs to deal with ever present damp issues, repointing stonework and replacing UPVC windows with timber.
Another target is a row of five shops all under common ownership, where traditional shop front intervention could be very impactful and replace unsympathetic additions. Intriguingly the words ‘Established in’ are visible above one added frontage, but the year was covered up. Hopefully the year will be revealed to us in our next visit to Morley as the property owner is currently engaging with architects.
Dialogue is being had with the owners of the listed, former bank buildings, opposite the Town Hall. It is hoped that structural roof work can be undertaken to conserve ornate plasterwork and internal down pipes in these buildings.
Conservation work to buildings close to the Town Hall would sit well with the planned improvements to the public realm space around the building. These works, as well as the refurbishment to the interior of the Town Hall, also form part of the Morley Town Deal. The current refurbishment is focusing on improving the beautiful Alexandra Hall enabling it to become a cultural venue of choice by introducing a café bar, enhancing sound and lighting capabilities, and improving accessibility into and throughout the building.
As we continued our tour, we saw other targeted properties where engagement with the owners is proving more challenging as cash flow is an ever-present obstacle.
More positively though exploratory work to look behind some shop frontages is hoped to reveal original architectural features at a parade of shops at Morley Bottoms where the property owner has engaged an architect, with drawings being finalised shortly.
Having completed our tour of targeted properties we turned up Commercial Street and saw the Church of St Mary’s in the Wood which featured in March’s Outlook as a building in the Top 10 of our Heritage at Risk List. A sad, but fascinating, sight with its steeple still dominating the Morley skyline whilst being locked behind gates as the Wood of its name rapidly takes over.
We then admired the solid grandeur of the Grade II listed former St Mary’s Church Sunday School and heard how the Council has acquired the building. This investment forms another strand of the Town Deal with the building to be transformed it into an adult Learning and Skills Centre with a focus on vocational skills development in new and emerging technologies.
Having completed our circuit, and spotted a number of Blue Plaques along the way commemorating Alice Cliff Scatcherd, Beryl Burton, and the birthplace of Titus Salt, we ended our visit feeling positive around the heritage conservation efforts afoot in Morley and hearing Liam’s confidence that grants will be awarded by the deadline in a year’s time.
