Wednesday 17 January 2018

PRESS RELEASE - Kirklees overlooked in Regional Investment Guide



The Leeds City Region Investment Guide 2017 - 'Insider Location' is aimed at attracting businesses to  West Yorkshire and nearby Councils such as York, Barnsley, Harrogate and Selby. In its 28 pages it has a total of 46 photographs illustrating why moving businesses to our region is such a good thing to do. Not one of the photographs is from Kirklees. Bradford, Wakefield, Calderdale and Leeds all feature but not a single picture from Huddersfield or the wider Kirklees area.

Councillor Andrew Cooper said

"In the text there is scant mention of our area. A fleeting reference to the HD1 development and outline planning permission in Bradley and that is pretty much it. So I have asked the Labour Administration of Kirklees Council how influential do they feel they are at the Regional level? With millions pounds worth of funding now being handled at the West Yorkshire and wider City Region level it is vital that Kirklees Council is 'on the ball' with attracting appropriate investment into the area".

"The Council have clearly 'dropped the ball' on this one. Simply having one person in the Council with the ability to give a draft copy the 'once over' would have been sufficient. Clearly that did not happen and clearly no one at the regional level thought it would matter too much if Kirklees had very little mention and no visibility in the document. The Kirklees Labour Cabinet needs to reflect on their role in attracting investment to our area and how influential it really is at the increasingly important regional level. If they don't we all could lose out."

Contact - Cllr Andrew Cooper - 07721 348619

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