Town centres used to be very lively places. Many tradesmen ran their businesses from there and people still lived above the shop.

Huddersfield was no exception to all this. Small cottages were pulled down in the 1960s to make way for the ring-road and here, as elsewhere, people moved out to peripheral estates.

A Creative Loft apartment in Huddersfield

In recent years many of the mill buildings that over the years have come to define the West Yorkshire landscape have been saved from demolition by being converted into residential accommodation.

Now there is a move to get people back into our towns and cities. The former Friendly and Trades building in Northumberland Street is the home of Creative Lofts, the first development of its kind in the north of England.

This Grade II listed building, built in 1861 as the Mechanics Institute, had become unsightly. Now, with the help of various agencies, including English Heritage the exterior of the building as been restored to its former glory by the Places for People Group.

Inside the building there are 21 apartments ranging from single studios to two-bedroom flats with split level mezzanines. Rents are designed to be affordable to people starting-up their own creative businesses and all the apartments are connected to the internet. The Victorians who first built the Mechanics Institute in the interests of their own self-improvement would almost certainly have approved.

Nor have all of Huddersfield's old yards been lost - one or two have been improved as part of the recent Kirkgate shopping development.