A NEW market hall for Huddersfield is likely to be in a windowless basement.

Three out of seven options for town centre redevelopment suggest knocking down Queensgate Market.

And each of them earmark an underground home for a new market.

It would have an entrance onto Queensgate - but the vast hall could have no other natural light.

Kirklees Council deputy leader Clr John Smithson said today that designs were in their early stages.

He said detailed plans would be drawn up later, if the people of Huddersfield decided they would rather see the 34-year-old structure scrapped, rather than refurbished.

Clr Smithson added: "We'll have firmer plans much further down the line, when it's been decided which of the options is favoured."

Consultation is set to stretch into the autumn.

Campaign group Huddersfield Gem wants the market hall preserved. Members like its architecture, especially the ceiling that lets light flood in.

One of the group founders, Adrian Evans, says: "The plans do show the proposed replacement in a basement below ground.

"The entrance would be from Queensgate and some natural light would come in there. But there would be no light from the roof."

Some critics will see an underground home, under at least two levels of shops and a level of leisure and health units, as a relegation for the market.

Mr Evans says: "Queensgate Market is a tremendous place to shop. It's a smashing market and we need to make sure it stays popular."

Huddersfield Gem says its priority is to keep the market building but the group is also open to the idea of the hall becoming a vast, open exhibition space - perhaps an art gallery.

"It's a dramatic and fantastic place," says Mr Evans. "It deserves attention. We don't want to attack Kirklees or come across as `anti-progress'.

We see our main role as showing what a fine and important building the market hall is, and what potential it has."

The underground market plan would see it as part of a vast complex topped with shops and perhaps a department store or hotel.

Many people are happy about the prospect of demolition.

Local historian Lesley Kipling said: "As far as I'm concerned they can blow it up."