A LARGE business park only built in the 1990s could be almost entirely flattened, because of dwindling lettings.

Eight of the nine units at Birstall’s Centre 27 Business Park - close to the Showcase Cinema in the Junction 27 shopping and leisure area - would be demolished if a planning application lodged with Kirklees Council gets approved.

The plans have been submitted on behalf of London-based property company AEW UK, which owns most of the site.

Unit 1, the base of internet security company Sec-1, would be unaffected by the plans.

In the application, planning agency Brooke Smith Planning says: “Due to poor occupation and problems with the building, the owner of the majority of the business park at the above location seeks to redevelop the land within their ownership.”

Andrea Caplan, of Brooke Smith Planning, told the Telegraph & Argus that the applications to demolish the buildings had “been submitted in light of increasing landlord void costs and deteriorating letting prospects”.

But the owners are remaining tight-lipped about what might be built to replace them.

Local Kirklees councillor, Andrew Palfreeman (Con, Birstall and Birkenshaw) said he and his ward colleagues were keen to find out what the long-term plan for the site was.

He said: “There’s an application to bring it down, but we don’t know what’s going in its place.

“Of course, Junction 27 is a very important part of the ward and a very important part of Kirklees, and if it is a case of taking down buildings, however recently they were put up, to put up something better and improve the facilities, well that’s great.”

Cllr Palfreeman said in his view, he thought the Junction 27 area had enough leisure units and he would personally welcome more shops.

But he added: “It’s not what we want, it’s what people think will be commercially viable.

“The only problem we have with Junction 27 is that when the area was first conceived, nobody thought of the infrastructure that should be in there as well, which is why sometimes, particularly around Christmas time, it’s an absolute nightmare up there.”

Cllr Palfreeman also criticised Kirklees Council’s proposals to place a gypsy and traveller camp across the road from the Centre 27 Business Park, off Bankwood Way, which forms part of its under-development Local Plan.

Last year, AEW UK applied to convert seven of the business units into 51 apartments.

But planners refused permission for the conversion plans, as the site falls within a ‘safety hazard area’ surrounding the site of chemicals firm Tennants Distribution Limited, at nearby Gelderd Road.

Documents lodged with these planning applications revealed that two of the business units had structural issues associated with subsidence.