SPECULATION is growing over whether Kirklees is in line for a new police headquarters.

Plans to merge Huddersfield and Dewsbury police divisions were approved by a West Yorkshire Police Authority committee in Wakefield earlier this month.

It was announced the new Kirklees-wide division would be launched next April and be based at Huddersfield Police station - but plans for a new headquarters in a more central location had not been ruled out.

Kirklees Clr Martyn Bolt said he thought creating a new headquarters outside Huddersfield - possibly in Mirfield - would go some way to reassuring the people of Dewsbury, Batley and the Spen Valley they would not get second-rate policing.

"People in North Kirklees are very upset about the merger because they see it as a loss of power to Huddersfield. The divisional HQ will now be in Huddersfield and lots of things will be taken away from Dewsbury.

"I think in the long term building a new station to be the central point of the new Kirklees force in somewhere neutral like Mirfield is inevitable.

"The report about the merger states there will be no closures. Well Mirfield Police Station is not closed but it is hardly ever open. The people of Dewsbury are worried their police station will become part-time."

Clr Ken Smith, a member of the police authority who opposed the merger, said: "I am still shocked this was passed because the public do not want it. I worry about how the police are now perceived by the public.

"There are problems with moving the headquarters, even though on paper it could work.

"The cells at Huddersfield lead straight to the Magistrates' Court which is very useful. It would be more difficult to take people from cells in Mirfield to either Huddersfield or Dewsbury.

"I would also imagine both of the present police HQs would have to be sold. Neither are particularly suited for office buildings."