Graham Turner, the council’s cabinet member for regeneration, said the latest stage of the project would be “significant” additions to the town’s cultural offering.<\/p>\n
“By building a state-of-the-art gallery, it will allow us to to accept exhibitions from around the world, we can put any display on in there.<\/p>\n
“Longer term, we can become a travelling arts centre for the north.<\/p>\n
“Towns across the country have too much retail space so you have to repurpose that to ensure town centres stay vibrant and relevant,” he added.<\/p>\n
![\"An](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/5d6016d2d5eef8b13e3761a1892dfc42.jpeg\"\/)
<\/p>\n
Our Cultural Heart will see over \u00a3210m invested in Huddersfield town centre [Kirklees Council]<\/p>\n
Phase one of the project began in summer 2024, with construction taking place on a new library hub, food hall and public square on the site of the former Queensgate Market.<\/p>\n
The council expects this to be complete by 2026, with a planned opening in the summer.<\/p>\n
Initial plans also included an events space on the top floor of the library, however this was axed in a bid to save money<\/a>.<\/p>\n The Cabinet meeting will also propose the demolition of the remaining retail units at the Piazza shopping centre to be brought forward to an earlier date in 2026.<\/p>\n This would make way for a new town centre park in the scheme’s third phase.<\/p>\n Turner added: “It’s a really exciting time for Huddersfield. We’re really going to make Huddersfield a place to live, work and play.<\/p>\n “In the next five to 10 years you won’t recognise Huddersfield as it is now. It’ll be a modern, vibrant town in West Yorkshire.”<\/p>\n Listen to highlights from West Yorkshire on BBC Sounds<\/a>, catch up with the latest episode of Look North<\/a>.<\/p>\n More on this storyRelated internet links<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Kirklees Council is set to give the final go ahead to the latest developments to Huddersfield town centre…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":124807,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[59196,6225,6485,6486,1120,96,59198,59195,59197,59193,59194,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-124806","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-arts-and-design","tag-art-gallery","tag-arts","tag-arts-and-design","tag-artsanddesign","tag-design","tag-entertainment","tag-heart-project","tag-huddersfield-blueprint","tag-huddersfield-town","tag-kirklees-council","tag-museum-and-art-gallery","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/124806","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=124806"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/124806\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/124807"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=124806"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=124806"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=124806"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}