Hotels with bad food, dirty sheets, showers with no hot water and managers like Basil Fawlty will soon be a thing of the past for tourists visiting Kirklees.

Kirklees Council plans to introduce a new policy with stricter standards for hotels, bed and breakfast accommodation and guest houses across the district.

It will mean the Council only recommending places to stay which have been inspected and approved by respected organisations such as the English Tourist Board, AA and RAC.

Council bosses say the tougher policy is needed to prevent Kirklees losing tourists to other parts of the country and because tourists have increasingly higher expectations.

They point out most larger hotels participate in AA and RAC schemes but most bed and breakfast businesses do not.

Gerry Broomfield, manager of Gomersal Lodge Hotel, Gomersal, said: "It think it is a good idea because it is virtually a guarantee that tourists will get a good standard of accommodation.

"We are already a member of the English Tourist Board and are waiting inspections by the RAC and AA.''

Tomorrow's planning and economic development committee meeting is being asked to approve the policy to come into force from 2000 - giving establishments a year to become inspected.

The Council produces 12,000 copies of an annual guide in which most of the places to stay in Kirklees are represented free of charge.

The district's two tourist information centres refer visitors and book them into these places. The centres get 5,600 inquiries a year. But a report to the committee by Council officer Cathy Bryon-Edmond says at present the businesses are not formally inspected by the Council although they are encouraged to join schemes run by nationally-recognised agencies.

She says: "Many visitors to Kirklees using the guide or the services of the tourist information centres presume a formal inspection has taken place in order for us to promote an establishment.

"This can lead to false confidence in using certain venues and a greater likelihood of complaints.

"If complaints occur, the Yorkshire Tourist Board will now only investigate those that relate to properties inspected by them. Likewise the AA and RAC deal with their own schemes.

"This leaves the Council impotent in the case of complaints relating to all other establishments.''

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.