Mirfield homes plan will ‘suck money out of town’

Kirklees Council has put in a application to build 11 detached homes and convert a stone manor house into apartments on the Westfields social services site, in Westfields Road, which closed earlier this year.

Coun Vivien Lees-Hamilton (Con, Mirfield) said: “I’m not happy, but I wasn’t happy when they shut it down. The people who worked there shopped in the town and closing the centre in the first instance took business away.

“It is in Kirklees’ interest to build more houses because the more they build the more money goes back into Kirklees.”

She said the roads, schools and the town’s health centre were already under severe strain and that the money raised from the new homes would be taken out of Mirfield and pumped into other areas of Kirklees.

She said: “I would like to think they would use the money to improve services in Mirfield but I think that would make me an optimist.

“We bear the brunt and the money goes elsewhere and that’s as wrong as it can be.”

Kirklees Council said it could not comment on a pending application.

Earlier this year, 190 staff were relocated from the building to offices in Huddersfield in a move that was criticised by Unison.