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10
Jul 2021
Work on ‘worn out’ Ripon flats could get under way this summer
Work to improve “worn out” flats next to the site of a sinkhole risk in Ripon could get under way this summer, a senior councillor has said.
Cllr Mike Chambers, cabinet member for housing and safer communities at Harrogate Borough Council, said the refurbishment of Allhallowgate flats had been delayed due to covid but would get started at the “end of summer or beginning of autumn”.
The project was first agreed in 2014 and the latest update follows complaints from residents and councillors that the ageing building has become an eyesore.
Speaking at a meeting on Wednesday, Cllr Sid Hawke, who represents the Ripon Ure Bank ward, described the flats as “shobby” and “looking a bit tired and worn out”.
The building sits next to a cordoned off site where separate plans for 17 new flats were abandoned two years ago due to problems with ground stability.
Cllr Chambers told Wednesday’s meeting that ground levelling works to tidy up the site were now under way ahead of landscaping.
He said:
And on the Allhallowgate flats refurbishments, Cllr Chambers added:
Read More:
- Investigation into hole won't delay Ripon Leisure Centre build
- Subsidence causes evacuation of four Ripon homes
Ripon is one of the UK’s most sinkhole-prone cities as it sits above a layer of gypsum – a water-soluble rock that leads to the formation of large underground caves that can collapse.
In 2018, a sinkhole was discovered at the city’s leisure centre before works on a new swimming pool and refurbishment project were given a go-ahead to start a year later.
Two years earlier, another sinkhole saw 12 properties on Magdalens Road evacuated in 2016.
More recently, construction crews working on the new swimming pool discovered an underground void at the site last year and an investigation into how to fix the issue is currently underway.
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