For the fourth largest party in Kirklees, the Green Party and Valley Independents can make or break a budget.

The five Greens, together with the three Valley Independents they’ve forged a coalition with, have been able to negotiate their own manifesto ideas into council plans due to Kirklees being run by a party with no overall control.

The Greens hope to retain the five-councillor position they currently hold come the May 7 local elections – but with party membership growing a new recruit or two would be welcomed.

Clr Andrew Cooper, Green leader, said: “We are fielding candidates in 21 of the 23 areas.

“We work well with the Holme Valley North Independents, after each election we sit down and look at our own priorities, discuss how we’re working together. I think we all feel if we can work well together, trust each other then we’ll continue as we are.

“As a party we’ve seen membership grow, a lot of young people are signing up so we’ve got good prospects for our general share of the vote to rise. Obviously we’re focusing efforts on Newsome and Kirkburton.”

The priority services for the party are adult social care and roads.

“The focus for us in Kirklees is making sure adult social care is a top priority. The huge government cuts could have real consequences on services like this,” Clr Cooper added. “On the doorstep people are talking to us about something more visible and that’s the condition of the roads.

“In Newsome we’ve targeted money at potholes but Kirklees has nowhere near enough to sort the roads out. I think the government should put more money into services that people rely on.”

Kirklees Council has agreed to look at changing the frequency of local elections, and holding elections every four years to save £750,000 – “money that could be spent elsewhere” Clr Cooper says.

For Clr Terry Lyons and his two Holme Valley North Independent colleagues, planning is a big local issue.

Clr Lyons said: “A lot of people are talking to us about planning issues, we do all we can to get the best, sometimes it seems like we’re getting the best of a bad deal.

“Litter and dog mess is also something people talk to us about, we have a very good cleaner in Meltham so we’re doing our best.”

Clr Lyons said the Holme Valley North Independents had a good relationship with the Greens: “It works well, we won’t all agree on everything but we are all strong enough to vote how we believe we should.

“I think being Independent means we come from a very local perspective, we put our constituents interests first and while we do look at the bigger Kirklees picture, unlike the other parties who are controlled by tribalism we don’t have to deal with any of that.”