Birkenshaw councillors were today hopeful the village could provide continued residential care for its elderly citizens, despite the closure of a local care home.

Councillors feared care could be severely damaged after they claimed Kirklees Council ignored the results of consultation with residents of Threelands Grange residential home, their families, local groups and home staff, about its future.

A date has not yet been fixed for the home's closure, but it is expected residents will be relocated gradually.

The Mill Lane home - which can house 36 residents - cares for only 24 at present because no further residents have been taken on since news broke of the home's possible closure in March.

It is now thought Kirklees will look to the private sector to redevelop the site, to ensure residential care continues.

Birkenshaw Councillor Robert Light claimed there was utter sadness, but little surprise, in the village that opinions of residents, their families and staff had allegedly been ignored.

"What we would like to see on the site now is some sort of care home and sheltered accommodation. If that can be achieved it would be great.

"There are two options - either the council sell the site and we get a housing estate, or we press for them to get some form of scheme involving the private sector."

The news that Threelands Grange was to close came at a meeting of the council's Social Affairs Management Board.

At the meeting, chairman of the board, Councillor David Sheard, said purchase by the private sector was the preferred option and he would do what he could to ensure residential care continued in Birkenshaw.

Birkenshaw Councillor Andrew Palfreeman said: "We now have a clear statement of intent from Kirklees. The council's priority is to ensure that a home, built to the standards required by the Government, which was the major reason for the closure of Threelands, is the priority.

"We have to accept that the decision to close Threelands has been made. Although this is not a reprieve for the current home, it represents a brighter future than that which seemed apparent when the decision was taken."

The councillors will now seek assurances that those who will be relocated from Threelands will have the first opportunity to return to the new home once it is built and undertakings that the sale of the site and the granting of the necessary planning consent will take place as soon as possible.