Wakefield Upper Westgate High Street Heritage Action Zone 

Historic England Grant Funded Regeneration Scheme

The Heritage Action Zone (HAZ) scheme, aims to utilise the investment in the historic environment to fuel regeneration and positively change perceptions of heritage rich areas of towns and cities across England, including one of Wakefield's most historically significant streets, Westgate.

Westgate has a wealth of 18th and 19th century buildings, but many of these are in need of investment to bring them back in to fuller use. Over a third of the houses and shops on Westgate are classed as unoccupied, and some of the town's most beautiful historic buildings are in disrepair having deteriorated through decades of neglect and underutilisation. The Heritage Action Zone aims to restored and put back into use a significant amount of vacant floor space on Westgate through a mix of housing, commerce and culture, and in doing so aims to help change perceptions of the area into somewhere which makes an attractive, stronger contribution to the city centre economy, and where people want to visit, work and live.

Working with local people and partners, through joint-working, grant funding and sharing Historic Englands expertise and skills, a number of schemes were put forward for the scheme. A small select group of accredited Conservation Architects and Architectural Technologists were authorised to work on the HAZ projects, and Architecture 1B were appointed to deliver 5 renovation projects.

• 6-8 Silver Street

• Elephant And Castle Yard, Westgate

• Bolas House, Cheapside

• Catterall’s Solicitors, Cheapside

• 113-115a Westgate