KIRKLEES Council’s famous winter extravaganza – The Festival Of Light – is up for a top tourism award.

The Huddersfield town centre event has been named as a finalist in the highly coveted White Rose Awards.

Hinchliffe’s Farm Shop, Cannon Hall Farm and Cannon Hall Museum have also been nominated in the awards run by Welcome To Yorkshire.

Click here to see a video and picture gallery of last year's event.

The Festival of Light, which sees up to 50,000 descend on St George’s Square for three nights of street theatre, has been nominated in the Tourism Event of the Year category.

Netherton-based Hinchliffe’s, which scooped the national pork pie of the year award earlier this year, is up for the Taste of Yorkshire Award and Cawthorne’s Cannon Hall Farm is up in the Large Visitor Attraction category along with Cannon Hall Museum.

Winners will be announced at a ceremony in Leeds on October 1 and will not only receive one of the prestigious accolades, but will also be entered into the national tourism awards next year.

Clr Mehboob Khan, Leader of Kirklees Council, said: “Festival of Light has grown into a huge event which now takes over the whole town centre.

“Last year visitors came from across the North of England, hotels were fully booked and businesses reported their busiest weekend of trading for years.

“We are delighted to have been shortlisted for a White Rose Award and excited at the prospect of winning and becoming a strong contender in the national tourism awards.”

Hinchliffe’s General Manager, Simon Hirst, said: “It’s an absolute honour to be shortlisted for a White Rose Award amongst such strong competition.

“Our farm shop has come on in leaps and bounds over the years and despite some setbacks along the way, we’ve never lost our vision to grow the business and champion all our fantastic local producers.

“Our home reared beef is at the heart of our business and we’re also proud to be National Pork Pie champions.

“I can’t think of a better way to recognise all the hard work of the previous generations than winning a sought after White Rose Award – we’ve got everything crossed!”

Gary Verity, Chief Executive of Welcome to Yorkshire, said: “Making it to the shortlist is a huge achievement in itself and they have had to contend with some real quality competition.”