Longer opening on Sundays could be key to helping high street stores compete with the internet, it is claimed.

Retailers and shoppers have been urged to give their views on plans to give allow local councils the power to decide whether or not to relax current restrictions.

The government has launched a consultation paper into the proposals first outlined in Chancellor George Osborne’s summer budget. People have until September 16 to give their views.

At present, stores with a trading area of more than 280sq metres or 3,000sq ft are allowed to open for only six hours on Sundays whereas smaller shops can open all day.

The current Sunday trading rules were established more than 20 years ago in the Sunday Trading Act 1994. Since then, the arrival of the internet means consumers can order goods online 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

Veteran Huddersfield retailer David Whittle, of Peter’s in Huddersfield’s Packhorse Centre, said larger stores should be allowed to open for more hours on Sundays, saying: “The internet has hit the high street more than anything else. It would give larger stores the opportunity to compete.”

But Mr Whittle, whose store has 10,000sq ft of trading space, said he would only consider extending Sunday opening hours for his store at times such as Christmas when there was extra business to be had.

“I would not envisage extending our opening hours in ‘normal’ trading,” he said “But in November, December and January, it’s something we would review because there’s extra money to be taken.”

Steven Leigh, head of policy for the Huddersfield-based Mid Yorkshire Chamber of Commerce, said there strong arguments on both sides of the Sunday trading divide,

But whatever the outcome, local authorities had to be “adventurous and innovative” in dealing with issues such as parking charges to encourage more people to come into town.

“High streets are really suffering with things like business rates and parking charges,” he said. “If there’s a determined effort to get people visiting the high street at weekends, that’s a good thing.”

Mr Leigh said: “We understand the intentions behind this move, but good intentions do not always have the desired effects.

“A lot of people believe Sunday should be different to the rest of the week as an opportunity to have a quiet, relaxing day. But we live in a very fast-moving world.”

James Lowman, chief executive of the Association of Convenience Stores, said government figures suggesting that deregulated Sunday trading hours would boost the economy by £1.4bn a year and increase consumer spending by 12.5% were “out of date and misleading”.

He said: “There was no robust case for changing Sunday Trading hours in 2006, no case in 2012 after the Olympic Games and there remains no case in 2015.”

John Hannett, general secretary of shopworkers’ union Usdaw, said: “The proposal to devolve trading hours to elected mayors and local authorities would create chaos in the retail sector, tying up business in red tape as they try to operate under different regulatory regimes in every area of the country”.

A Kirklees Council spokesperson said the council was aware of the government consultation on trading laws, which ends on September 16, adding: “Once the outcome of the consultation is published, it will be considered and if felt appropriate the council will respond.”