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UK: development of synagogue building as apartments blocked

Blackpool Leamington Rd Synagogue. Photo: RHaworth via wikimedia commons, GNU Free Documentation License
Blackpool Leamington Rd Synagogue. Photo: RHaworth via wikimedia commons, GNU Free Documentation License

A High Court Judge has at least temporarily blocked the development into apartments of the Grade II-listed United Hebrew Synagogue in the seaside resort town of Blackpool, England.

The Blackpool Gazette writes that the Blackpool Borough Council had “challenged a government planning inspector’s decision to allow Thompson Property Investments to convert part of the United Hebrew Synagogue, in Leamington Road, central Blackpool.” The judge upheld the challenge.

The fight was fought in Manchester after the developer successfully appealed against the council’s initial decision to refuse permission.

It was there Mr Justice Kerr ruled the development would prove detrimental to such a culturally-important building.

 
The article states that the final outcome is still in doubt, as “the case will now be reheard by a different planning inspector.”
 
A May 13, 2016 article by Simon Rocker in the print edition of the London Jewish Chronicle noted that Thompson’s development plan
 

had originally been rejected by the council after objections from Historic England (formerly English Heritage). But Thompson successfully appealed to a planning inspector, who felt the development would “do little to harm” the character of the synagogue.

 
The article stated that Justice Kerr, in handing down his ruling quashing Thompson’s appeal,

concluded that the planning inspector had given too little weight to the conservation of the synagogue. The judge said the proposed reduction in the floor space of the prayer area would harm “a heritage asset”.


Jewish Heritage UK, which has placed the synagogue, designed by Alderman R. B. Mather, on its roster of “synagogues at risk,” describes the building as a “[j]olly red Accrington brick, stone and terracotta seaside synagogue with hexagonal lead covered cupola and quite art nouveau curves to the roofline on the exposed long wall.”
 
It notes that the 1916 synagogue, closed and deconsecrated, was sold up privately in 2012 by the dwindling congregation “to a local builder on the eve of a public auction that might have attracted bids from both strictly Orthodox developers in Manchester and cultural providers in Blackpool,” and “in January 2013 a Planning Application was made for building apartments on the site of and behind the communal hall, separated from the defunct synagogue by a proposed concrete wall.”
 
We posted in June about plans to convert another Grade 2 listed former synagogue — the Greenbank Road synagogue in Liverpool — into apartments.
 

Read full Blackpool Gazette article

See detailed description of the synagogue architecture on Historic England web site

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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