After years of financial difficulty, the Leader of Kirklees Council says the local authority is on firmer ground and working to tackle the issues that matter to local people.
Since coming into post last summer, Councillor Pattison believes that she and her administration have been successful in bringing stability to Kirklees after a difficult few years, which was a promise she made upon her election. She considers this to be a “key achievement” of her tenure so far.
She said: “We’ve achieved that stability, we’ve achieved that confidence in ourselves as an organisation and as a political executive, but now we have got to do more to deliver what it is people need or are expecting locally and the things they see everyday – the fly tipping, the bins not being emptied, roadworks…now we’ve really got to make the best use of that.
“We’ve got ourselves into a position where we’re financially stable thanks both to the work that we’ve done as a council but also thanks to the fact that the government has become friendly towards local government and they appreciate what we do, and Kirklees has always been at the bottom of the pile in terms of finance from government.”
But whether the public share this confidence in the council is another matter, as the councillor acknowledged. She said this is another area she and her administration will be working on.
Going forward, the local authority will be focusing on the things that impact people’s daily lives, like fly-tipping, regular bin collections and available school places, among others. Cllr Pattison said the council will be “moving its resources” to tackle such issues, with further plans to be revealed over the coming months.
The past year has seen the administration make a number of tough, often unpopular decisions in a bid to balance the books. Among them, the permanent closure of Dewsbury Sports Centre, and the agreement to privatise the council’s last remaining care homes. While Cllr Pattison couldn’t say that there will be no cuts whatsoever in the current financial year, she did confirm that there will not be any major cuts like those which characterised 2024/25.
She said: “The income that we’re now receiving both from Council Tax and from the government is more than it was but it’s still not sufficient. It’s certainly not sufficient to provide everything that everybody would like to see and it’s certainly not sufficient to provide everything that we would like to see, but we are not going to see any of those big cuts, those big changes.”
Cllr Pattison also said she hoped that the matters of Dewsbury Sports Centre and Cleckheaton Town Hall, which was mothballed in September 2023, will reach a final resolution this year.
Image: Google Maps
In 2024, the political makeup of the council underwent rapid changes, as some former Labour members left the Party, rejecting its stance on the conflict in the Middle East. During the months that followed, new political parties were formed, Labour lost seats at the local elections, subsequently ruling as a minority administration, and Cllr Pattison took over as Council Leader after Councillor Cathy Scott was ousted in a vote of no confidence.
As it stands, six parties sit on Kirklees Council, along with six independent members.
When asked about cross-party relations, Cllr Pattison said that things have “calmed down” since this time last year, with “a lot of learning” taking place in the meantime. She said: “We may have different viewpoints and different ideas about how to solve some of those issues but I think we’re all focusing more on things that local government can and should be doing something about and what we as local politicians – that’s our remit, that’s what we’re meant to be doing.”
This year there were no local elections in Kirklees with “all-out” elections – where every single member of the council faces re-election – on the horizon in 2026. Elsewhere, 2025 saw Reform UK take 41 per cent of all seats up for election.
When asked whether she expected to see a similar pattern in Kirklees, Cllr Pattison said it is “hard to say”. She said: “We’re not worrying about it. We’re doing what we’ve always done because I think Kirklees is a bit different, because we’ve always been.
“People think we’re solidly Labour but we’re not, we never have been – we’ve got pockets of solid Greens, Liberals, Tory etc. – we’ve always been a multi coloured place politically and so the approach certainly as a Labour Party that we’ve always taken is we’ve just got to do the best that we can for the people who have elected us.
“That’s all we can do – is to focus on those local issues and what really matters to local people. So, if Reform or any other party wants to challenge us well, that’s what they’re going to be up against – us working really hard. The one thing that we as a Labour administration have got is that sense of responsibility, sense of commitment and sense of loyalty to our local people and to Kirklees. We’ve had it for a long time and we will continue to have it and that’s our platform basically.”
Cllr Pattison didn’t wish to speculate on whether there would still be a Labour Cabinet in Kirklees following next year’s elections. She said: “I can’t speculate because Kirklees is always so different. It always bucks the trend when it comes to local elections or even general elections.
“A year ago when there was the general election and the Labour Party nationally swept in, that’s when Kirklees lost more seats than it’s ever lost which was amazing. There were reasons for that. And then in other times when Labour does badly nationally, we go and win seats.
“I’ve been involved in local politics here for 40 years and I don’t think I’ve ever seen us follow the national trend, so it’s impossible to say I think. I sincerely hope we will be [in power] because we’ve done so much in the last 12 months.”
Kirklees Council has an ambitious programme of regeneration projects, with several towns
Image: Google Maps
and villages across the borough the subjects of their own ‘blueprint’ projects. A focal point – Huddersfield’s Our Cultural Heart – is coming together, with the town’s new food hall, library and public square gearing up for a 2026 opening.
It hasn’t all been plain sailing, with financial pressures seeing some elements of the scheme re-phased or cut back, and others, including the venue and car park, in review. With this in mind, we wanted to know whether there was any concern that the local authority had been too ambitious with its plans for regeneration at the Cultural Heart.
Cllr Pattison said you can never be too ambitious, though you may have to “cut your cloth accordingly”. She said that no further re-phasing would be taking place at the Cultural Heart, aside from the park element potentially being brought forward. She explained that it has been 10 years since the plans were thought up, with it “right and proper” to ensure that all parts of the plans are exactly what is needed at this moment in time.
The councillor also said she was thrilled with the progress being made on the Huddersfield project, as well as the way construction company BAM has worked with the council and alongside the public. She was similarly pleased with how Dewsbury is shaping up, with old buildings being refurbished, and the arcade and market projects in the works, as well as schemes in Batley and Heckmondwike.
