This constituency covers the urban centre and east of the West Yorkshire town of
Huddersfield, the administrative centre of the
Metropolitan Borough of Kirklees. The town grew out of the former woollen industry, and is now a primarily residential market town with some light industry remaining in the town such as
Syngenta and
Cummins, and a growing number of students at the
University of Huddersfield. The town is economically diverse with some deprived inner-city council estates, such as
Deighton, and better-off areas on the outskirts, such as
Fixby, which contains exclusive detached stone houses in leafy roads. However, the town's western suburbs such as
Golcar and the middle-class suburb of
Lindley are actually in the neighbouring
Colne Valley constituency. Apart from four years tenure as MP by
Geoffrey Dickens for
Huddersfield West (1979–1983), the area (including its divided halves for the 33 years to 1983) has returned a
Labour Party MP since 1945. The constituency is currently held by the Labour Party, although the
Liberal Democrats made inroads by coming second in the 2005 general election, and in the 2010 general election Karen Tween of the
Conservative Party narrowed the
incumbent's lead to a relatively average 4,472 votes and the new Liberal Democrat candidate slipped into third place. There are currently Green Party councillors in Newsome, and some Tory and Liberal Democrat councillors in Almondbury, but the remaining wards are safely Labour. The Dalton ward also includes the village of
Kirkheaton, separated by a green buffer, and the Almondbury ward includes the small village of
Lepton, West Yorkshire. == Boundaries ==