Munjit Singh Dulay, the owner of the former Holme View Car Home on Gillingham Green, Holme Wood, appeared at Bradford Magistrates Court on Wednesday charged with failing to comply with a planning contravention notice relating to the property.
His company MB Estate Ltd faced the same charge.
Dulay, 59, of Station Road, Shirehampton, in the Bristol area, denied the charge and will go on trial in October.
The Holme View Care Home was closed by Bradford Council in 2017 and subsequently put on the market.
It has since come under the ownership of Dulay, who had planned to convert the care home into social housing.
In January 2024, Bradford Council issued an enforcement notice against the property, saying work to convert the site into housing had begun without planning permission, and was of a poor quality.
Munjit Singh Dulay leaving court (Image: T&A)
The notice said: “The development is of poor quality appearance, materials and form, harms the visual amenity of the area and does not provide housing of high quality and design; does not put the quality of place first and harms the character of the neighbourhood in which it is sighted.”
It requires the site’s owners to “demolish the unauthorised building consisting of the construction of residential units” and “remove from site all materials and waste resulting from the demolition of the building.”
The notice took effect in February 2024, and gave a six-month deadline for the demolition to be completed.
The half finished building work still stands on the site.
The former Holme View Care Home site (Image: T&A)
The charge put to Dulay on Wednesday was that “between 16/08/2024 and 19/02/2025 at Bradford you failed to comply with a requirement of a planning contravention notice within twenty one days of its service on you by City of Bradford Metropolitan District Council.”
Dulay pleaded not guilty to the charge.
He also pleaded not guilty to the same charge that was put to MB Estate Ltd – which is based at the same address as Dulay.
He told magistrates that he would argue that he never received the enforcement notice.
He was not represented in the brief court appearance, but told Magistrates he would have legal representation at the trial, and that his architect will also be in attendance.
The trial will be held at Bradford and Keighley Magistrates Court on October 29.