Garden Mills: £5.8m plan to turn historic Yorkshire mill into 'education centre' is approved

Garden Mills, a five-storey building off Thornton Road, in Bradford, is currently “mothballed” and used for storage by owners Bradford College. Late last year, the Government announced the college would be one of many across the country to be awarded cash to boost their facilities.

This spring, the college submitted a planning application to refurbish the building to create a new higher education centre. The application has now been approved by Bradford Council.

As well as the building’s refurbishment, the approved plans will also allow for the creation of an enclosure for air source heat pumps, which will be used to heat the Victorian building and replace the mill’s current gas fired boilers.

The application described the mill as being in “poor condition, with ageing building fabric, life expired services and tired internal finishes.” It said there were also accessibility issues related to the building’s current layout.

The work will create science laboratories, a prep-room, six higher education digital IT labs, an ophthalmic dispensing suite, clinical suite, a real-life work environment with consulting/testing booths, and a collaboration space alongside academic teaching spaces.