Kirklees

Kirklees is a metropolitan borough of West Yorkshire, England. The borough comprises the ten towns of Batley, Birstall, Cleckheaton, Dewsbury, Heckmondwike, Holmfirth, Huddersfield, Meltham, Mirfield and Slaithwaite. It is governed by Kirklees Council. Kirklees had a population of 422,500 in 2011; it is the third-largest metropolitan district in Yorkshire by area, behind Doncaster and Leeds.

The borough was formed on 1 April 1974 by the provisions of the Local Government Act 1972 as part of a reform of local government in England. Eleven former local government districts were merged: the county boroughs of Huddersfield and Dewsbury, the municipal boroughs of Batley and Spenborough and the urban districts of Colne Valley, Denby Dale, Heckmondwike, Holmfirth, Kirkburton, Meltham and Mirfield.

The name Kirklees was chosen by the merging councils from more than fifty suggestions, including Upper Agbrigg, Brigantia and Wooldale. It was named after Kirklees Priory, which is claimed to be site of Robin Hood's death, situated midway between Huddersfield and Dewsbury. The priory was located within the present-day Kirklees Park estate, most of which actually lies in the neighbouring borough of Calderdale.

Under the original draft of the Act, the district would have included Ossett, part of the Dewsbury Parliamentary constituency at that time. It was eventually decided that Ossett was too remote to be governed from Huddersfield and the town was included within the Wakefield district instead.

Kirklees sits in quite a central position to all the other surrounding unitary boroughs of West Yorkshire, with people living in the northern parts are closer to Leeds and York for work and education. People living in the western parts are closer to Bradford, Halifax and Huddersfield for education and work. People living in the southern and eastern parts are closer to Wakefield, Barnsley, Sheffield and Manchester for work and education. The largest towns in the borough are Huddersfield, Dewsbury, Batley, Heckmondwike and Cleckheaton.

The principal settlements of Kirklees are mill towns in the Colne Valley, Holme Valley, Calder Valley and Spen Valley. Those areas of the district with a more urban character bound Calderdale to the west, Bradford to the north-west, Leeds to the north-east and Wakefield to the east.

The district also includes several rural villages, with the largest rural area extending from the south of Huddersfield. The Pennine countryside to the south-west of Meltham and Holme lies within the Peak District National Park. This moorland area mostly bounds Saddleworth, a traditional part of Yorkshire but now locally governed from Oldham, Greater Manchester. There is also a relatively short border with the High Peak district of Derbyshire, running across the summit of Black Hill, and the main border to the south of Kirklees is with Barnsley.

The inclusion of two county boroughs resulted in a district without an obvious centre. Over the years there have been suggestions of splitting the district into two, administered from Huddersfield and Dewsbury. Graham Riddick, as MP for Colne Valley, campaigned for a split in the early 1990s. A similar ambition was mentioned by Elizabeth Peacock, MP for Batley and Spen in 1991. The boundaries of metropolitan boroughs were outside the remit of the Banham Commission appointed to review local government structures in 1992 or its successors, and only minor boundary changes were made with neighbouring districts in 1994.