Former Courtauld factory buildings, on Factory Lane West, Halstead, to be converted into flats as plans approved

The buildings have been empty since 2009, but work can now start on converting the historic site into 22 flats after Braintree Council granted planning permission last Wednesday.

The site, on Factory Lane West, was built as a power and boiler house unit in 1922 as part of the expansion of Courtauld Factory.

This included doubling the size of the factory, diverting the river to its present course and filling in the old channel.

Developers acknowledged that “Although it is is not a locally Listed Building, it is a building of importance which should be preserved, and if it is to be converted, to be done in an appropriate manner retaining the external features.”

A previous planning application to convert the two buildings into 26 flats was withdrawn in 2015.

Halstead Town Council raised no objections to the conversion.

The buildings were built to serve the enormous factories that were situated to the north and west until they too were demolished in the 1980’s.

In 1985 Maycast-Nokes moved their pressure injection moulding shop into the Boiler House and a finishing shop into the first floor of the Power House until leaving in 2009.

Planning permission has been granted to convert the existing buildings to flats, together with car parking and new open space/landscaping around the existing buildings.

The conversion will create eight, one bed single floor flats, four, one bed duplex flats, and 11, two bed single floor flats.

In addition, a new commercial storage area on the ground floor will create 162.8sqm of space. This is inN tended to be run as storage