Neighbourhood Board Meetings.

The Dewsbury Neighbourhood Board holds quarterly public meetings at Dewsbury Town Hall.

These meetings provide updates on the ongoing Town Investment Plan projects, seek decisions required of the Board, and discuss other agenda items such as the Plan for Neighbourhoods programme.

Each meeting features a Public Question Time, where board members respond to questions from the general public. You can submit your questions in advance by emailing executive.governance@kirklees.gov.uk.

Responses to all previous public questions, along with full meeting discussions, are recorded in the minutes.

View previous Dewsbury Neighbourhood Board meeting minutes here.

Recent Questions.

The public questions and answers shown below are from the most recent Neighbourhood Board Meeting (6th November 2025).

The Board recognises the importance of accessible sports and leisure facilities in Dewsbury and understands the community’s concerns about the closure of the Sports Centre.
While the Board itself does not have the authority to reopen or fund such facilities directly, it continues to work closely with the Council to support the development of future options. Community engagement and health and wellbeing are key priorities in the wider regeneration plans for the town.
The Council has committed to carry out further work to assess the future leisure needs of Dewsbury.. This work will begin shortly and will help inform how and when new or improved facilities might be delivered. These decisions will also be shaped by the Council’s ongoing budget-setting process.
We appreciate the continued interest in this issue and thank you for raising it again. The Board remains committed to supporting efforts that improve health, fitness, and wellbeing for all residents.
The Board recognises that community engagement is a vital part of its work and acknowledges that there have been challenges in the past.
The current Board has recently held both a strategy session and a governance session, where community engagement was a key focus. As a result, the Board has renewed its commitment to improving how it engages with and listens to the people of Dewsbury.
One of the immediate actions being taken is to improve the accessibility of information on the website. This includes publishing clear guidance on meeting arrangements, how questions from the public are handled, and providing a dedicated section for frequently asked questions and responses. This aims to make it easier for residents to find information without needing to search through detailed meeting minutes.
The Board has asked Council officers to prioritise this work, and these improvements will form part of a broader effort to ensure transparency, accountability, and meaningful community involvement in the regeneration of Dewsbury.

Frequently Asked Questions.

The Dewsbury Neighbourhood Board is a group of volunteer local leaders, businesses, and community representatives working together to support the regeneration and long-term improvements in Dewsbury Town Centre. Government has mandated the board is set up and run by a range of local leaders and community organisation representatives.
The board’s role is to oversee projects that have been approved through Town Deal funding. The Board makes decisions within funding parameters, that align with objectives including economic growth and regeneration and meeting the needs of the community.
The board includes representatives from local businesses, community groups, local government, a local MP, and other key organisations.
View our Board Members here.
The board is funded by grant monies from central Government, Council contributions, and private investment that have been approved in the Town Investment Plan.
All projects are currently in the delivery phase, and it’s evident in Dewsbury centre (as of Spring 2025) these are happening. Some of these projects will be ongoing for a number of years, and more projects are anticipated to start once the board and government have approved projects from the Plan for Neighbourhoods funding.
No, the board works independently but collaborates closely with the local council and other organisations to deliver projects. The Council is the accountable body with the Town Board being responsible for overseeing project delivery.
Updates will be posted on the website, through social media, and in press releases in local news. You can also sign up for email updates from this website too and follow links to social media channels.
A key part of the board work is to listen to public feedback as they too are local people. In addition to consultation feedback, the website and social media channels, the local people can share their views or submit questions they may have ahead of board meetings. These questions can be answered during Board meetings..
In 2025, we held a public consultation - helping us explore how we can best use the £20m of investment that Dewsbury is set to receive from the Government’s Plan for Neighbourhoods funding.
You can view and download a summary of our consultation results here.
Town Fund grant funding can be moved between the already approved Town Deal projects, subject to a Project Adjustment Request (PAR) being approved by Government. This funding cannot be moved from an approved Town Deal project to something new, such as Dewsbury Sports Centre. 
Any changes to the programme are dealt with through a PAR process, which offers some flexibility for places to amend their projects. With projects all now in delivery, PARs should focus on securing the viability of existing projects and ensuring that interventions are deliverable, good value for money and continue to have a strong strategic fit with the original Town Investment Plan.
Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) guidance notes that Neighbourhood Boards have the delegated authority to move 30% of spend across financial years. The guidance also offers boards the opportunity to reallocate up to 30% of project funding to another project within the specific Towns Fund Programme provided: 
- The change does not exceed 30% of the source project value.  (Town Deal Grant element for scheme) .
- The projects remain good value for money as per the requirements of each fund.
- Outputs, outcomes and spend timetable do not move or reduce by more than 30%.

What is the geographic boundary the Dewsbury Neighbourhood Board are responsible for and is the Sport Centre within this?

The boundary for the Neighbourhood Board was set by Central Government as the Office for National Statistics ONS Built Up Area, this is the area shown in black to the left.

In developing the Town Investment Plan it was agreed that the primary focus of investment activities should be the town centre (shown left in red), to help aid increasing footfall and economic growth as outcomes from targeting some of this investment.

Dewsbury Neighbourhood Board members agreed, with advice from Government officials, that any future funding should focus on the town centre to ensure future investment builds on and aligns with existing regeneration plans and priorities. 

How were the Town Deal projects identified?

The previous government allocated billions of funding to specific towns throughout the UK which were identified as needing improvement, with Dewsbury being earmarked for this.

A visual summary is below to highlight the timeline and process of the selection process.

Public consultation by Kirklees Council as part of the Dewsbury Blueprint was undertaken and a contractor was appointed to develop a Town Investment Plan.

Avison Young were appointed as contractors to help support through preparing and developing the Town Investment Plan. Social Communications were subsequently appointed to undertake engagement with communities to understand priorities that will help shape improvements needed in 5process, a selection process was undertaken from a long list of ideas and shortened based on government criteria and technical guidance.

Finally, the Town Board approved the projects, which are now in the delivery phase of the Blueprint.