Review of the Year: December

A planned television drama about the kidnap of Dewsbury Moor schoolgirl Shannon Matthews got the thumbs down from our readers.

The team behind the Bafta award-winning Fred and Rose West drama Appropriate Adult were said to be working on the project, and filming is expected to start early next year.

But the renewed focus on the town was not welcomed by Reporter readers, who discussed the project on our Facebook page.

Joanne Jackson wrote: “After the positivity of Educating Yorkshire which put Thornhill/Dewsbury on the map and has been received positively throughout the world, we are now going to be subject to this debacle being dragged up again. It should be left where it is in the past.”

The police investigation into the hunt for Shannon, who was missing for 24 days in early 2008, cost more than £3m and threw families on the Moorside Estate into the national spotlight.

A lucky duck who was heading for the dinner table as centrepiece of a Christmas lunch avoided the chop - after it was discovered he was masquerading amongst a flock of geese.

How Lucky found his way among the geese stock at Hostingley Farm remains a mystery to owner Lynn Lindley. The geese at the Thornhill farm were just a week away from meeting their festive fate when her husband Tim found the imposter in the flock.

Lynn said: “We were absolutely flabbergasted. We have no idea how it got there.”

The Indian runner duck, was given a new home, and new name, Lucky.

Lynn believes Lucky may have been dumped at the farm or perhaps made his way along the canal and through the fence to make some feathered friends.

Lynn said: “I don’t know how it didn’t get spotted before. They are white and have long necks but it was considerably small than a goose. It was quite clear he wasn’t a duck. We just didn’t have the heart to kill him.”

A third major housing development could spell the end of Mirfield as a separate town, its mayor feared.

Developers revealed plans for 164 homes on the Mirfield Moor site, not long after two other developments were unveiled - bringing the total number planned to 337. The two other controversial greenfield developments - at Bladerstone Hall fields and off Lady Heton Drive - had already been greeted with outrage.

Taylor Wimpey was planning the biggest development of all on Mirfield Moor, off Leeds Road. Coun Vivien Lees-Hamilton said: “If all this goes through, there will be no longer any need for ‘Mirfield’ or ‘Ravensthorpe’, for example - the council may as well just rebrand the area ‘North Kirklees’ as there would be no separation of boundaries. This could be the biggest urban sprawl you ever did see.”