POPULAR venues across Kirklees will benefit from new investment totalling more than £2.7m.

The council’s Cabinet approved the spending yesterday.

Some £240,000 will be invested in Huddersfield Town Hall.

The concert hall’s ceiling will be painted for the first time in 15 years and the conference room redecorated for the first time in a decade. Meeting rooms will also be refurbished.

It will be the latest work to take place at the town hall. Last year the council chamber was extensively modernised and the building’s main entrance moved from Ramsden Street to Corporation Street.

Gomersal Public Hall will benefit from £260,000. There will be a new roof, windows, bar and kitchen and the large hall will also be refurbished.

Cabinet member and Gomersal councillor Margaret Bates welcomed the new money.

She said: “This is absolutely wonderful news. I’m delighted that we’re investing in the hall.

“It’s under-used at the moment so I hope this will bring in the public. It is the focal point of Gomersal and we will be able to make better use of it.”

The Cabinet also agreed to spend £2.2m to improve footpaths, pavilions and signs in parks across Kirklees.

Some £901,000 will go towards buying new equipment, fencing and seats for play areas across the district.

And allotments will receive £139,000 for footpaths, boundaries and site clearance.

The Tolson Museum at Moldgreen will get £80,000 to replace lead which has been stolen from the site.

Oakwell Hall at Birstall is in line for £120,000 to strengthen the 400-year-old home and £60,000 to repair the crumbling garden wall.

There will be £250,000 to make Dewsbury Museum fully accessible to people in wheelchairs.

Bagshaw Museum in Batley will get £50,000 to install a lift and carry out urgent roof repairs.

New gutters for the Red House Museum at Cleckheaton will cost £25,000.

Paths in Honley Wood will be upgraded at a cost of £25,000.

Councillors will spend more than £2.5m on three town halls.

Kirklees Council decided yesterday to invest in the centres at Dewsbury, Batley and Cleckheaton.

The money will be spent over three years improving the decoration and equipment of the town halls to encourage more conferences and ceremonies at the venues.

Some £500,000 will be invested in Cleckheaton and £1m each in Dewsbury and Batley.

The council will also spend £135,000 over three years reducing room hire charges in the town halls. And £56,000 will be invested in a survey of the stonework, doors, windows and floors at the three centres.

Cabinet member Clr Andrew Palfreeman welcomed the new money. He said: “This is good news and shows our commitment to investing in North Kirklees.

We want the town halls to become centres of the community that they serve.”