Kirklees Council’s bus gates are a “money making” scheme in disguise, a business boss has claimed.

Owners of small firms were invited to give evidence at a probe into Kirklees Council’s implementation of bus gates.

Paul Keighley, a partner at Bramley’s estate agents at St George’s Square, said firms such as his had not been given proper consideration as the authorities sought to speed up bus journeys on Westgate.

The controversial bus gates were installed in early 2016 to prevent motorists clogging up key sections of the town for buses.

But thousands of drivers have been caught out by the cameras, netting the council £442,000 in the first nine months.

At the same time footfall in the town centre on Saturdays slumped by 22%.

Mr Keighley said firms had not been given adequate explanation of the scheme prior to its launch or any chance to reject it.

“There was no offer of the status quo,” he said.

“The council had decided there will be bus gates and these are the three schemes to choose from.”

He added: “We’ve implemented a scheme to benefit 25% of people (bus passengers) who have the least ability to take goods away.

“It was not discussed at all with businesses on how it would affect the town.

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“It is without doubt a money making scheme and the buses have been used as a stalking horse to get it through.”

Kirklees Council and bus company officials denied the claim.

A representative from First Bus said its buses were taking three sets of lights to get up Westgate and there were also jams around the train station and up by the town hall.

He said: “We saw it as a very good way of reducing congestion and cars running through the town centre causing significant delays to bus services. The proposals were very close to what we would have done if we were starting with a blank piece of paper.”

Neal Wallace from West Yorkshire Combined Authority, a collaboration of West Yorkshire councils, said congestion in West Yorkshire had exceeded levels in 2007, the previous peak.

He said they backed ways to increase bus speeds as stationary buses were more polluting.

But Alisa Devlin, a Westgate based florist and campaigner against the bus gates, said the consultation had been an “entirely biased process” that gave little regard to firms based inside the exclusion zone or motorists.

Alisa Devlin of La Fleur, Westgate, who has organised traders' opposition to bus gates in Huddersfield town centre.

She claimed there was still huge congestion on Westgate and John William Street, which was denied by the First Bus spokesman who said journeys through that area were now 50% quicker.

She said: ”I don’t think anyone realised what the impact of the scheme would be.

“We thought it was just some sort of traffic calming scheme.

“The only thing we were consulted on was loading bays.

“We didn’t have a clue it would stop people completely from coming to the town centre.

“How come the motorists weren’t consulted?

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“There weren’t any proper surveys done about the strangling effect it would have on the town centre.

“It was ill thought out.”

Clr Ken Sims asked if any work had been done on levels of bus passengers and car passengers coming into Huddersfield.

“If the town centre dies the bus service will be irrelevant,” he said.

“Nobody has a secret formula to know what makes a town centre viable or not.

“But you’re pushing to make buses a priority at a time when business are struggling.

“Public transport has not got to the stage that the private car has in regards to access to town centres or wherever you want to go.”

The council’s Overview and Scrutiny Committee will now take a few months to produce a report on whether it believes any mistakes were made by the council.

At the same time a cross-party working group is analysing the impact of the bus gates, with recommendations due in the summer.