Green light for Northlight! Plans get go-ahead
“Our ambitious plans to create a new £32m learning, living, working, leisure and cultural destination for the North West entered an exciting new stage this week,” announced Councillor Iqbal, Leader of Pendle Council.
Planning permission has been granted for 52 apartments in the iconic Victorian mill and Northlight residents will also have hidden basement parking . Office spaces for businesses and organisations within the Grade II listed mill, which was built in 1838 alongside the Leeds and Liverpool Canal, also got the go ahead. And plans to develop a range of eating and drinking businesses within the former Brierfield Mill complex were approved,too.
“This will make our Grade II listed mill a great place to work, live and visit and will create hundreds of jobs,” stated Councillor Iqbal who leads on economic development for Pendle.
Councillor Naeem Ashraf, who chairs the Brierfield and Reedley Area Committee where planning permission for the exciting plans was approved, said:
“We support the transformation of Brierfield Mill into Northlight – this redevelopment is vitally important for our area.”
Pendle Enterprise And Regeneration Ltd (PEARL) is the joint venture company of Pendle Council and Barnfield Investment Properties which owns Northlight.
History & background
Brierfield Mill was one of the first steam powered cotton spinning mills in the area and in 1890, the mill clattered to the sound of 2,213 looms and 91,000 spindles. At its prime in 1948 the company owned nearly 80,000 mule spindles in two spinning mills and had 2,800 looms in four weaving sheds.
In 1957 Smith and nephew Textiles Ltd bought the mill for the manufacture of surgical bandages. In 2001 the company merged with the German company Beiersdorf AG trading under the name BSN Medical – the only one of its kind in the UK, weaving for the medical industry with stringent regulations.
Brierfield Mill closed in 2007 and this iconic landmark became one of English Heritage’s Listed Buildings at Risk.
It lay empty for five years, having been sold to a private organisation for possible use as a school, but it was not put into use.