Councillors in Cleckheaton are hoping to collect more than 1,000 signatures to put pressure on Kirklees Council to buy a redundant town centre site.

Liberal Democrat councillors Ann Raistrick, Kath Pinnock and Andrew Pinnock have already collected 500 names calling on the Council to buy up land once occupied by the Savoy Cinema and dubbed the "bomb site".

The owners, Berkshire-based Bastion House, have given assurances that talks are taking place between the company and a national convenience store chain interested in opening on the site.

But the councillors say that people living in Cleckheaton are tired of waiting for development.

Coun Raistrick said: "If a development is in the pipeline, then that is all well and good. But we have heard it all before.

"We have been waiting for seven years and we've been told of countless plans for the site which never happen."

The petition, which has been distributed to shops and campaigners in Cleckheaton, calls upon Kirklees Council to either negotiate with the land's owners or make a compulsory purchase order.

They want to see the area in Bradford Road levelled and the hoardings taken down - or the area transformed into a piazza-style market with an injection of regeneration cash.

Planning permission already exists to create a market or build four retail shops and a 13-space car park on the site.

David Brackenridge, of Leeds-based chartered surveyors and property consultants Brackenridge, Hanson and Tate, the agents for the owners, said a British convenience store chain was still deliberating whether to build a shop on the site.

He said: "We cannot reveal the identity of the company but we would expect a decision in about two weeks. Their estates team is happy with it and it now has to go before the company's board."

Residents and shop owners had complained about the state of the site which has suffered from vandalism and fly tipping.

Coun Raistrick said the campaigners planned to present the petition to a full meeting of Kirklees Council in November.

A spokesman for the council's property department said that before a compulsory purchase order could be granted it would have to be proved that the site's owners were making no attempt to develop it.

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