Character Area 1: Mixed-use Town Centre and Civic Quarter

The Mixed-Use Town Centre and Civic Quarter character area provides a significant opportunity for change. The ambition is to provide a more diversified town centre offer to broaden the current mix of uses and address the contracting retail offer.  This will help to drive footfall within Keighley town centre. The interventions include introducing new health and leisure uses, improving the existing Food & Beverage and night time economy offer and increasing the amount of housing, to create a thriving town centre which meets residents’ day-to-day needs. 

Potential interventions could include the following: 

• Airedale Shopping Centre – Reconfiguration of the shopping centre and car park to reintroduce historic street patterns to improve walking and cycling connectivity within the retail core and broaden the offer to provide healthcare, leisure, food & beverage and housing within the town centre. 
• Bus Station and new square– The bus station would be relocated to the site of the current Airedale Shopping Centre multi-storey car park, which is currently underutilised and in a poor state of repair. This car park would therefore need to be demolished to enable this relocation. This would provide an opportunity to create a new town square at the heart of the town centre, on the site of the current Bus Station. This will create the opportunity to host key events, helping to benefit wider businesses and generate footfall.
• Market Hall – Relocation of the market hall to within the reconfigured Airedale Centre to diversify the shopping centre offer and bring forward new housing on the site of the Market Hall. 
• Keighley Railway Station – Improved walking and cycling connections between the retail core and the train station and improving the public realm at the station forecourt to create a more welcoming arrival to the town.
• Alkincote Street – relocation of poorer quality employment uses along Alkincote Street into Business Development zones, to provide a more mixed-use / residential offer within the town centre.

The proposed interventions as set out are indicative only. There is no funding commitment at this stage to deliver the vision. If the proposals are supported by stakeholders, a more detailed delivery plan would be considered as funding opportunities arise.