Local councillors’ opposition to the Bradley Park golf course plan has been “totally ignored”, one has claimed.

After more than two years of threats to pave over the only municipal 18-hole course in Kirklees, officials have now given it a partial reprieve.

They say they can now squeeze a nine-hole course and driving range in, among the 1,500 homes they want to build.

One ward councillor has now hit out the ruling Labour cabinet and claimed she and her colleagues were snubbed.

Clr Jean Calvert, now independent after quitting the Labour party following her council tax non-payment scandal, has said that Ashbrow councillors’ views were “rebuffed”.

Clr Jean Calvert/

Clr Calvert said she and Labour members, Clr James Homewood and Clr Amanda Pinnock, had hosted a community meeting, where everyone agreed they were opposed to the revised nine-hole plan.

In a press release to the Examiner, Clr Calvert, claimed five members of the Labour cabinet, dubbed the “Famous Five”, stifled any views not aligned with their own and any Labour councillors who showed dissent were threatened with deselection.

She said: “Ashbrow councillors are annoyed their response to a ‘Bradley Urban Extension’ consultation regarding building on the land of Bradley Park Golf Course has been totally ignored by Kirklees Cabinet members, who haven’t had the decency to append the response to a Cabinet report due this week, or even answer the issues they raised.”

The new plan for land currently occupied by Bradley Park Golf Course. Nine holes have been included to the north of the site.

Clr Calvert added that the “rebuff” was how she had been treated for the past four years and was one of the reasons she had decided to go independent.

She said leaving Labour allowed her to “let the residents of Huddersfield know that the people who they have voted in to represent them, are having their voices stifled...”

A Kirklees Council illustration of proposed new housing on the site of the Bradley Park Golf Course at Bradley.

Clr Calvert’s submission to the council complains ward councillors have not been involved at all in the changes to the scheme.

The document says: “There is no nine-hole golf course in the country that is sustainable and yet we have a mature 18 hole golf course which has won many awards and contributes circa £100,000 per year towards other sporting facilities in Kirklees.

“This is an important reason why it has to be retained.

“There is a possibility of building 700 new houses alongside the golf course without having to use the golf course land at all.

“The shortfall of 800 houses can be reconfigured in the Local Plan on other private land within Ashbrow ward.”

The document goes on to question the need for football pitches and the proximity of what she calls, “the largest harzardous waste tip” in Kirklees, which Clr Calvert says contains asbestos and ash from Huddersfield’s energy from waste incinerator.