Kirklees Council is hiring space in a church to count election votes today - and it’s cheaper than hiring two halls it owns.
All votes cast in yesterday’s elections will be counted at Cathedral House, St Thomas’ Road, Huddersfield.
Kirklees hired the main auditorium of Cathedral House, home of the Huddersfield Christian Fellowship, yesterday and today for the Kirklees count and Sunday for the European election count.
Previously election ballots have been counted at town halls or Huddersfield and Dewsbury sport centres - the latter are buildings Kirklees owns but are managed by Kirklees Active Leisure (KAL).
Kirklees Council say the move is the “significantly” cheaper option and a spokesman added: “Cathedral House is a bigger, better and more cost-effective venue to hold the elections as all the counts could be in one place, along with all the security.
“Kirklees Active Leisure is a company, separate to Kirklees Council, so when the council used it for election counts the council had to pay to hire it like anyone else, and there was also the issue of the loss of revenue because the rest of the sports centre would have to shut too.”
The website for Cathedral House says the main auditorium is available for hire at £8,200 per 12 hours. However the council has negotiated a fee but have been unable to tell us how much.
Kirklees is also getting an additional contribution for the European elections count via government grants.
The council spokesman added: “It is more efficient to count in one place and it will be costing significantly less than the cost of hiring two sports centres as in the past.
“Overall it will definitely be cheaper to use one venue than two sports centres.”
Huddersfield Town Hall’s main hall is not large enough to accommodate the size of the borough-wide counting operation and having multiple counting locations would require duplicate resources.
Today 250 staff will count the votes in 23 Kirklees Council wards - with 108 candidates hoping for a win when the counting gets underway from 9am.
The European election count does not begin until Sunday afternoon and the result is expected late on Sunday evening once the polls have closed throughout Europe.
The polling stations were open yesterday from 7am to 10pm
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