A WATCHDOG wants trees outside Huddersfield’s Queensgate Market to be removed because they obscure ceramic sculptures.

At the latest meeting of Huddersfield Civic Society members were invited by Kirklees Council’s Town Centre Group to contribute to a ‘wish list’ for improvements to the market hall.

Members highlighted the importance of the sculptures on the Queensgate wall of the building and said removing the trees obscuring them as the thing they would most like to see done.

They said the felled trees could be replaced by yews, which could be kept to a suitable height.

Society members also expressed their support for Kirklees’s plans to create a policy on shopfronts.

At the meeting Richard Fellows, head of the Art, Design and Architecture School at Huddersfield University, gave a talk on The Grand Manner: English Architecture 1890-1950.

He discussed the design of a number of buildings, many of them local.

Members also discussed planning issues with Clr Roger Battye, a member of the council committee dealing with the Henry Roebuck Homes almshouses on Wakefield Road at Waterloo.

He invited members to join him in assessing the future needs of the homes and grounds to meet changing use.

Members objected to plans for what they called a starkly utilitarian two-storey car park in the forthcoming Folly Hall Mills development. They said it would be inappropriate for the site.