A councillor has hit out at a document designed to attract investment to the West Yorkshire for giving “scant” attention to Kirklees.

The Leeds City Region Investment Guide 2017 – Insider Location – is aimed at attracting businesses to West Yorkshire and nearby areas such as York, Barnsley, Harrogate and Selby.

Its 28 pages include 46 photographs promoting the region to outside investors – but while stunning scenery and landmark buildings in Bradford, Wakefield, Calderdale and Leeds are featured, there are no images of Huddersfield or the wider Kirklees area.

Kirklees gets a few mentions in the text – with brief references to the HD One development at the John Smith’s Stadium; plans to develop the former technical college site at New North Road; approved plans to extend Kingsgate; investment in research facilities at Huddersfield University; plans for 75,000sq ft of employment land at the former Bradley and Colnebridge water treatment works; the Summit 24 industrial development at Lindley Moor; and the Process Manufacturing Centre at Turnbridge.

Newsome Green 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.”

He said: “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.”

Kirklees Councillor, Clr Andrew Cooper

Clr Cooper argued that Kirklees should have had input into the contents of the guide, adding: “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.”

A spokesman for Kirklees Council said: “The publication Clr Cooper refers to is a commercial publication produced by Business Insider Magazine which was distributed at a property event in London in October.

“The publication is funded by commercial advertising from developers and scheme promoters, resulting in editorial space being skewed towards the interests of those who have placed advertisements.

“We understand that the promoters of schemes based in Kirklees were approached by Insider Magazine to take paid-for advertising space, but for whatever reason chose not to and this is reflected in the level of editorial coverage given to Kirklees schemes. These are commercial advertising decisions of private developers which have absolutely no bearing on Kirklees’s influence in the region.

“A more accurate measure of our influence would be our success in securing large-scale structural investment funds, such as £170m from West Yorkshire Plus Transport Fund for our strategic priorities on the key roads network and our joint bid with WYCA for £22.5m for Dewsbury Riverside through the Housing Infrastructure Fund.

“The local authority has also submitted its own bid of £10m for our major Railway Gateway Scheme around Huddersfield Station and a further £10m to support highways improvements which will bring forward flagship residential opportunities at Longroyd Bridge. Kirklees also had senior representation as a part of the Leeds City Region Local Enterprise Partnership delegation at MIPIM UK (property trade show).”