‘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.

Charles Jones set up a petition to clean up the town centre back in the summer and he told councillors that within days he had the signatures of over 200 organisations.

He retorted to Clr McBride’s comments, "We have so many expert people who know what they are doing, they are talking about things in the town centre and they have all these exciting new ideas and you’re just sitting down and turning your back on this and saying ‘We are doing a good job.’

"I don’t know what world you are in but you are not in the real world.

"We have to bring pride back to our town and people need to be part of this."

Other calls were made to rejuvenate the areas between New Street and Chapel Hill where heritage expert Chris Marsden deemed "wretched monuments to failure" lie.

Requests were also made to moderate the number of takeaways on Cross Church Street as rats with chicken bones are an all too familiar site.

The meeting began with a presentation from Streetscene, the part of the council who are in charge of improving the day to day running of the town centre.

Rob Dalby of Streetscene promised, "If businesses and residents do their bit, and people who visit the town do theirs, we will do ours."