Split Kirklees in two, say Tory councillors
Kirklees Conservative Leader Robert Light and Calderdale Conservative Leader Stephen Baines who announced radical plans to split north Kirklees from the rest of the borough and merge services with Calderdale. (d14021264)
CONSERVATIVES have announced plans to wipe Kirklees off the map by splitting the council in two.
Batley and Birstall would come under the control of a new Dewsbury and Spen Valley Council, based in Dewsbury.
Announcing the plan on Tuesday, Kirklees Conservative leader Coun Robert Light said: “Kirklees has never been a success and it never will be.”
He said the Tory plan would provide better value for money, put services under local democratic control and save at least £2.5m every year.
At a press conference in Mirfield, Coun Light and his Calderdale counterpart Coun Stephen Baines said their two existing local authorities would become three separate councils. Dewsbury and Spen Valley Council would share major services with Calderdale Council and a new Greater Huddersfield District Council.
These would be children’s services, adult and health services, transport, investment and regeneration, commissioning and back office resources.
Neighbourhood services such as street cleaning, libraries and bin collections would be run by the three councils themselves.
Coun Light, who represents Birstall and Birkenshaw, said the decision to base the new council in Dewsbury was because it is the biggest town.
“Every citizen in Birstall and Birkenshaw will get the same rights and services from their council as citizens in Dewsbury,” he said.
As well as major services, the three councils would share a chief executive and two deputy chief executives – one based in each authority.
Directors of children’s services, adult and health services and transport, investment and regeneration services would also be shared with one based in each authority.
The three councils would have their own cabinets – though they may be smaller than at present – with their own leaders.
Calderdale would have fewer council wards to make it the same size as the other two councils. The existing Kirklees wards would remain.
While the potential name of the new councils would still be up for discussions, locals have hit out at the proposal of Dewsbury and Spen Valley Council.
Coun Gwen Lowe (Lab, Batley West) said: “I think some people want to take a big rubber and rub us off the map, but we won’t let that happen. On the whole I think this is a totally unrealistic idea.”
Mark Griffin, who runs Batley Smile – a campaign to promote the town – described the oversight in the name as ‘madness’.
He said: “I can’t fathom why that would make any sense whatsoever. I think that would alienate Batley folk.”
Batley Community Alliance’s Gill Paterson said on the whole she thought the council split could be a good plan, but agreed the name was ill-thought out.
“The Spen area isn’t a particular town, so why should they highlight Dewsbury,” she said.
“This area used to be called the Heavy Woollen district.”
Coun Light said despite the name, the new council would work for all of north Kirklees, adding: “If people want a different name, then so be it.”
The decision to share services could be made by a vote of the two existing councils, but the secretary of state for local government, Eric Pickles, would need to agree to split Kirklees.
Coun Light said there could be a referendum on the matter, if the public demanded it. If the plan goes ahead, work could start from June this year to establish the new system by May 2014 and have it up and running by that October.
Liberal Democrat group leader, Coun Kath Pinnock, said it was “a very costly experiment.”
Kirklees Council leader and leader of the Labour party Coun Mehboob Khan, said: “The Tory proposals seem poorly considered and would be unworkable in reality.”
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Thursday 24 May 2012
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dondoric
Tuesday, February 21, 2012 at 12:33 AMThen again a few years down the line what will most likely happen is instead two enlarged council districts of Wakefield and Huddersfield respectively modelled most likely on the current local NHS trust's health boundaries.The Mid Yorkshire NHS trust covers both the present Wakefield city council distict and the entire Heavy Woollen Dewsbury side of North Kirklees serving over 500,000 people here,this could be modelled ultimately on a future enlarged Wakefield city council disrict.In effect towns such as Mirfield,Dewsbury,Batley,Birstall,Heckmondwike,Liversedge, Gomersal,Cleckheaton,Birkenshaw,Oakenshaw,Hartshead,etc, could end up as suburbs within an enlarged Wakefield city council district of again over 500,000 people,which may largely go down well here but with some opposition,but who knows.However on the other side of the coin the Calderdale and Huddersfield NHS trust covers both the present Calderdale council district and the entire Light Woollen Huddersfield,Holmfirth,Denby Dale side of South Kirklees serving over 435,000 people here,this too could also be modelled ultimately on a future new enlarged Huddersfield (City ?) council district.Here in effect Calderdale towns such as Brighouse,Elland,Halifax,Sowerby Bridge,Hebden Bridge,Todmorden,etc,here too could instead end up as suburbs within a new enlarged Huddersfield (City ?) council district of again over 435,000 people,which may largely go down well here in Brighouse and Elland in particular but will largely go down very badly in parts of Sowerby Bridge (Ripponden,Rishworth) ,North Halifax and most especially in Todmorden itself.And even worse the town of Huddersfield will most certainly become a city one day more so after Kirklees does split up ultimately.
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