Dewsbury apartments scheme being planned for Neil Jordan House

Neil Jordan House, opposite Dewsbury Railway Station in Wellington Road, could be converted into 20 one-bedroomed flats.

A planning application has been submitted to Kirklees Council by Bradford-based social housing provider Chartford Housing.

The two-storey frontage of the building is the former station master’s house and is Grade II-listed for its historical importance.

Behind is a four-story stone warehouse building which also forms part of the conversion.

Neil Jordan House was the previous home of Jordans Solicitors. It was restored by Neil’s son Robert, who was senior partner at the time. It was opened in 1992 by Lord King, the former chairman of British Airways.

Neil Jordan qualified as a solicitor in 1949 and joined Milford Crosland to form Crosland’s Jordan & Company, which later became Jordans. He went on to become one of Dewsbury’s best-known and most respected lawyers.

Neil was also one of the UK’s first bomb disposal experts during the Second World War and helped protect the coasts of Suffolk and Norway against invasion. He was later invalided out of the services.

Jordans spent 27 years at Neil Jordan House before moving to new offices further down Wellington Road in 2019.

According to a Heritage Statement on the planning application, the station master’s house probably dates back to 1850. The frontage is listed but there is no reference to the connected warehouse also being listed. It is, however, within the Dewsbury Town Centre Conservation Area.

The buildings along Wellington Road were generally rag warehouses for woollen cloth manufacturers. They were built on surplus land sold off by the London and North Western Railway Company.

The developers promise to “sensitively refurbish” the listed building and attached property with “very minimal changes” externally.

Windows will be replaced with high quality aluminium, they say.

There is an existing hoist mechanism in the warehouse which they plan to remove for “safety reasons.”

Public consultation on the plans runs until February 11.

One objection published on the council’s website warns that similar flats developments in Dewsbury had become little more than “slum housing” with bins overflowing with food waste which attracted vermin.