Dewsbury Arcade, built in 1899, is a Grade 2 Listed Victorian arcade in the centre of Dewsbury. Once a popular and thriving retail arcade, it closed in July 2016 and has stood empty since. In early 2020 the council purchased the building as part of the Dewsbury Blueprint with a plan to bring it back to life and help regenerate the town centre.
Bringing the arcade back to life
After securing planning, funding and a construction partner, works on the arcade started in early May 2024 with an initial target completion of June 2025. Once complete the Arcade Group will be responsible for long-term leasing and management of the arcade, meaning no further financial investment is required from the council, and making the arcade the first community-run shopping centre in the country.
During the design process, the council undertook a suite of surveys and reviewed plans for the refurbishment accordingly. Given the complexities of the building, and in anticipation that issues like rot and decay would be found once the renovation work began, contingency was included in both the budget and project delivery timeline.
Construction complications
However, the rot, decay, and associated issues uncovered during the construction work have been far more significant than heritage experts from the council, architects BDP and the National Lottery Heritage Fund could have predicted. Since the start of construction, specialist timber and damp surveyors have identified numerous interventions required across the whole building and these issues have been compounded with unexpected complexities, including a lack of building foundations.
The most significant unforeseen issues include:
- Structural repairs and replacement of structural beams to the Corporation Street bookend roof.
- Timber repairs required on all four floors of the building.
- Lack of foundations, structural assessments and repairs at multiple locations.
- Replacement of ground floor unit concrete flooring slabs.
- Discovery of the original lift mechanism, incurring delays for associated archaeological work.
The photos below show timber decay and missing foundations
These unforeseen issues have resulted in delays, for two main reasons:
- Where problems have been identified such as lack of foundations or timber decay, time is needed to design, approve and undertake temporary works to allow workers to make repairs safely.
- Additional work to address the issues requires an increase in time to complete.
Moving forward to completion
The scheme has an approved budget of £10.3m, which includes the contingency allowance of approximately 8%. Around £3.5m has been spent so far, and the project remains within budget and within the contingency allowance.
The contractor has provided a new programme of work identifying the additional time required, along with substantial justification for this request. The programme was reviewed by the council’s Construction Project Manager and by an independent consultant from the Delivery Associates Network (provided by the government). This concluded that an extension to the programme was necessary, with a revised completion date of 8 October 2025.
The council have worked with the contractor and designer, and with the Arcade Group, to see whether there was any way to speed up the timeline for delivering the arcade, but it was agreed that everything which could be done is already being done.
Assuming there are no further issues that cause delay, we expect the project to remain within budget and for the construction work to be completed in 8 October 2025.
Renovation milestones
The key milestones for the rest of 2025 are summarised below:
- Complete excavation / uncovering works – February / March
- Building to be watertight – April / May
- Complete roofing and structural works – May
- Internal works – May to September
- Completion of building works – October
As the contractor is still finding issues with the building at this stage, this timeline may still change. Over the next month, any further issues with the building should have been found, allowing the council to provide a final update regarding the timeline and budget if necessary.
Once renovations are complete
On completion of the building works, the next stage will be to fit out the units ready for tenants. Once this fit-out is completed, the council will hand the arcade over to the Arcade Group.