Full business cases for £19.1 million worth of investment into Brighouse are now being submitted to the Government.

The business cases for the proposals have been approved by Calderdale Council and the Brighouse Town Deal Board, which made up of representatives from the town’s private and voluntary sector, community and residents’ groups, following three years of “extensive” consultation.

The board believes the projects will “write a new chapter in the story of the town.”

It will now be for the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities to review the plans and, once this review is complete, release the funding allowing work to begin on making the Deal developments a reality.

The approved projects put forward include a bumper £9 million being used to enhance the town centre’s retail and leisure offer with a focus on people by enhancing the streetscape and providing places for people to sit and meet friends, increasing footfall and encouraging people to stay longer using Brighouse’s shops, cafes and restaurants.

£21 million to bring empty sites in Keighley and Shipley back to life is approved

A sum of £6 million for the Canalside and Thornton Square areas to improve connectivity to enhance outdoor recreation, promoting Brighouse as a place to live, work and visit, creating a public space and promoting and using the waterway as an attraction, bringing in more visitors, is included.

To deliver a new Brighouse Market building on the canalside, £3 million is budgeted – this will include 40 fixed and pop-up stalls with supporting infrastructure including new toilets and spaces to sit, meet and rest, with the pop-up stalls seen as a help for start-up businesses.

Other projects include £650,000 being put into high tech manufacturing to place it at the heart of Brighouse’s future by creating an Industry 4.0 Hub where small and medium businesses can explore how digital technology can improve their productivity and increase innovation, with capacity for 70 new apprentices, working in partnership with Calderdale College.

Brighouse Welcome will see £400,000 put into developing public areas to encourage active lifestyles including walking and cycling.

If projects are given the go-ahead, contractors will be invited to tender for the work and planning applications prepared during late 2022 and early 2023, with an ambition for projects to get under way and construction to begin later in 2023, to be completed by mid-2025, said Coun Sophie Whittaker (Con, Rastrick), who is co-chair of the Brighouse Town Deal Board.

She added: “This is an important moment for the future of Brighouse."