‘IT is the town against the council’, claimed one resident.

In a meeting about the town centre, businesses and organisations took on Kirklees councillors in a "passionate" discussion.

Clr Peter McBride described many of the suggestions made in the Examiner’s Town in Crisis series as "nonsense" and "half baked." And he criticised one idea proposed by Dave Harvey of Huddersfield University’s business school for a new hospital near the town centre.

He said: "We have got to get real and understand that there’s a limit to what Kirklees does.

"There is an £80 million black hole in the council’s budget and that’s got to be met.

"The council has to now think what do we not have to do? What buildings do we sell? What services do we not longer fulfil?

"Talking of expansion of finance is nonsense, the reality is we have got to mend that deficit and that is the big task remaining at the moment."

He used the Festival of Light and Huddersfield Food Festival as examples of how the council works to bring in revenue.