Crime and anti-social behaviour and how residents and visiitors feel about what they see and hear is recognised as the greatest problem affecting our town centre.

The Chamber was instrumental in gathering the testimony of residents to persuade the council to fund additional police in the town centre.  This is an ongoing requirement.  In 2026 the situation is better with West Yorkshire Police providing both a Town Centre team and a Neighbourhood team. 

The police rely on data to allocate their resources in the most effective way.  So the reporting of incidents by the public will remain the most effective way to help the police and council officers to be on the right sreets at the right time in order to respond in the most effective way. 

• Dial 999 if you see an incident in progress
• Dial 101 to report situations that do not require an immediate police response.
• Use Street Safe to report  areas where you have felt or feel unsafe, because of environmental issues, eg street lighting, abandoned buildings or vandalism and/or because of some behaviours, eg being followed or verbally abused.

We support the Dewsbury Blueprint published on 5 Feb 2020 laying out the council's vision for the next 10 years followed in 2021 by the Town Deal Board that supervises nearly £60 million of Towns Fund money with £25 million from central government and match funding from the council and private investment to support regeneration in the town. 

These projects include the acquisition of The Arcade and the redevelopment of the Market.

In 2024 the Town Deal Board was redesignated as the Town Board to continue the delivery of the original investment plan and subsequently renamed as the Neighbourhood Board to implement the Pride in Place project.

While the regeneration projects convey a long term direction of travel the Chamber continues to suggest improvements where necessary.

Events & Festivals

While the majority of retail takes place in the supermarkets outside the ring road the future of the town centre will depend on retail offers that are not available elsewhere in the area and on events and festivals taking place that bring footfall into town which will then support the cafes, restaurants and other service industries that tend to occupy this space.

First impressions count and the visual appearance of our streets is important. Good housekeeping, street cleaning and particularly the enforcement by the council of existing laws and bye laws is required.

The Chamber does NOT support business owners who fail to maintain their premises in good condition or fail to comply with the law.

Empty shops do not look good and the Chamber has encouraged the Council with the strategy to improve the appearance of empty premises using vinyl 'mock ups'.  The ability of business owners to claim rates relief on listed buildings and empty properties leads to neglect and the Chamber is lobbying the council to change this.

We have accumulated an excessive number of betting shops, amusement arcades and similar businesses that extract money from the family purse without contributing to the life of the town.  Getting the right mix of activities in the town is key to attracting more visitors.  The wishes of the community need to be taken into account more during the planning process.

Considerable sums of public money are being invested in Dewsbury.  With the majority of development work being routed through the Town Board since 2020 there has been much discussion within the Board about communication.  Regrettably, throughout the 5 year life of the Town Board there was only one piece of useful information about one of the nine projects published and visible in the town centre where most people can see it.   This has been a major failure of the Board.

The Chamber seeks to communicate to the current Neighbourhood Board the necessity of communicating effectively with residents about the work taking place in simple, visible forms giving start and planned finish dates , illustrations and the intended benefits. The community wants facts not slogans.

Recognising the need to improve communication throughout the community the Chamber amended its constitution in 2019 to allow membership by constituted community groups and continues to press the council to engage more extensively with the wider community.

Parking.  Dewsbury's old town centre has a Victorian street layout much disrupted by the ring road.  There is very limited on street parking and no large car parks in the old town centre. Meanwhile the supermarkets around the ring road demonstrate that Dewsbury retains an active retail environment - just not in the historic centre.

Those same supermarkets offer extensive free parking and the walking distance into the historic centre is short.  People just need a reason to visit.  For this reason the two major regeneration projects of the Arcade and the Market must be special, they must provide experiences and niche products that cannot be found elsewhere.  

To support retail in the town centre the Chamber believes that the development of 'experiences of all kinds in addition to the evening economy is important.  This includes an extended effort to develop events and festivals. Yet the parking to support such activities is extremely limited.

As part of a consultation on parking in 2019 the Chamber proposed a radically different approach to parking in Dewsbury with Cliffe Street car park being converted to a Park & Ride park with no time limit.  The intention is to encourage visitors to stay without any fear of penalty tickets.

Cliffe Street car park is the only large car park controlled by the council.  It has previously been designated in the Local Plan for residential development.  This makes no sense when it is the car park specifically intended to support the Market into which substantial sums are being invested to revive it as an anchor to attract footfall into the town.

Discrimination against Dewsbury  For decades the people and businesses of Dewsbury have been discriminated against with parking fees while the rest of North Kirklees benefits from free parking.  The Chamber identified this anomaly to the council in 2019 as the highest priority to be resolved over parking.

The council had the opportunity to resolve this issue in 2024/5 when it dramatically reviewed parking charges throughout Kirklees in order to deal with a shortfall in council budget.  The council failed to take this opportunity and even after dramatic changes in parking fees it has left Dewsbury with a different system which costs our shoppers and businesses more than elsewhere.