A City Hall blueprint for the new Keighley Town Council is not the end of the matter, says Bradford's elections boss.

Andrew Mather insists the views of Keighley people will be taken into account before the final version is put forward.

The local knowledge of residents is needed to ensure the wards have the most suitable names and boundaries.

Keighley-based Bradford councillors would also be involved in deciding the areas that the new town councillors would represent, Mr Mather told a meeting of the Keighley Area Panel.

Several of the councillors suggested changes when they read Mr Mather's draft proposals at this week's meeting.

Bradford proposes that the town council has 30 councillors in 12 wards, with each member representing more than 1,000 residents.

In presenting the draft proposals, Mr Mather, head of democratic services, admitted his suggested names might not be the best possible.

But he said the final wards would need to be based on groupings of the existing polling districts used in Bradford Council elections.

The setting up of a town council followed an exchange of letters in the Keighley News which led to a public meeting being called. As a result a steering group was set up, chaired by editor Malcolm Hoddy, and a successful mass petition was started which eventually led to a referendum.

Cllr Martin Leathley, a leading light of the town council campaign group Keighley Voice, put forward two alternative ideas.

One was a reshuffle of the council's proposal into 15 wards, providing what he felt was a better representation of local communities.

The other was Keighley Voice's very different idea, which involves having one councillor for each of 30 local communities, whatever their size.

Cllr Leathley regarded Bradford's proposal as a "good first effort", adding: "What it probably lacked was a bit of local knowledge."

Cllr John Prestage said it was important to get the ward boundaries right, because once decided they cannot be changed for several years.

He added: "It's important we have wards as small as possible, and that the number of councillors in each ward are roughly the same."

Cllr Andrew Mallinson expressed his hope that people would stand for election in all the wards.

Among changes suggested by councillors were separating Stockbridge and Beechcliffe, bringing all parts of the Braithwaite and Guard House estate together, and separating Bracken Bank and Knowle Park.

Map and details of the proposals on page 3