BARONESS Pinnock of Cleckheaton is to get an Honorary Doctorate from the University Of Huddersfield.

The former leader of Kirklees Council will be one of eight honorary award recipients at the University’s July awards ceremonies.

Baroness Pinnock (pictured) graduated from the University of Keele and moved to West Yorkshire 40 years ago from Birmingham to teach history at a secondary school.

She was elected as a councillor for the Cleckheaton ward in 1987 and has served the Cleckheaton community as its councillor ever since, holding the posts of leader of Kirklees Council from 2000 to 2006 and leader of Kirklees Liberal Democrat councillors from 1991 to 2014.

During her time as Council leader she helped introduce the Warm Zone scheme which provided free loft and cavity wall insulation to the 200,000 households in Kirklees.

As a consequence, nearly 100,000 homes were treated and fuel poverty reduced as well as carbon emissions and the scheme achieved national recognition and awards.

Mrs Pinnock went on to be appointed to the Board of Yorkshire Forward, the former regional development agency which had the role of stimulating economic and community regeneration. In 2014, she was appointed to the House of Lords as Baroness Pinnock of Cleckheaton.