Month: September 2010

Leeds City Council’s PPG17 audit, when it appears in December, will calculate demand for tennis courts based on already established figures for participation in the game of tennis, Lawn Tennis Association recommendations, and local population statistics.  Since these are all known now, there’s no need for us to wait until December. Using the same parameters that will be used in the city’s PPG17 audit, we can calculate now how many tennis courts are needed by local people.

Methodology

Need has been assessed by :

1. Applying the percentage of people nationally within three age groups who were found by Sport England’s Active People Survey (APS3) to play tennis weekly over a 12 month period, to the number of local people within the same age groups.
2. Determining how many tennis courts these people need using the Lawn Tennis Association standard of one court for every 45 residents.

Headingley

Hyde Park and Woodhouse

Using the above methodology, it can be seen that Headingley requires 9 tennis courts and Hyde Park and Woodhouse requires 7. Since Headingley already has 2 courts (at St Chads) and Hyde Park and Woodhouse has 6 (on Woodhouse Moor), this means that there is a need for 8 additional courts. Consequently, the 7 courts on the Leeds Girls High site cannot be considered surplus to requirements.

An alternative method of calculating the need for additional courts would be to use the finding of The General Household Survey 2002 that 1.9% of people aged 16 and above had played tennis in the previous fours weeks. This equates to 459 people in Headingley and 370 people in Hyde Park and Woodhouse (based on 2001 census figures). Since the Lawn Tennis Association recommends the provision of one court for every 45 people who play tennis, this means that Headingley requires 10 courts and Hyde Park and Woodhouse requires 7. At the moment Headingley has just two courts (at St Chad’s), and Hyde Park and Woodhouse has 6 (on Woodhouse Moor). So, using this methodology, Headingley needs an additional 8 courts and Hyde Park and Woodhouse needs 1.

Given that it’s so easy to do a PPG17 study to determine our area’s need for tennis courts, one can’t help wonder why the Planning Department didn’t include one in the report they presented to the councillors of Plans Panel West on the 12th August 2010.

References

General Household Survey
Sport England’s Active People Survey 3 (2008/09)
2001 Census Figures
Assessing Needs and Opportunities: A Companion Guide to PPG17

( photo courtesy of The Suss-Man (live from Albany, GA) )

At the meeting of Plans Panel West that took place on the 12th August 2010, planning officer Paul Gough told elected members that the Leeds Girls High tennis courts are not needed as there’s no demand for additional tennis courts in the area. He based his claim partly on the fact that six tennis courts on Woodhouse Moor were recently converted to a Multi Use Games Area (MUGA) through ‘lack of use’.

The reality is that the six tennis courts were poorly used because they were in a very bad state of repair as a result of many years of neglect. The above photograph shows the state they were in at March 2008.

When local people found out about the proposal to convert the courts to a MUGA, they expressed their opposition to councillors at a meeting of INWAC that took place on the 13th December 2007. In response, the councillors passed the following resolution :

That in respect of the multi use games area proposed close to Hyde Park Corner, North West Area Management be requested to seek clarification on the proposals, and to ensure that public consultation was carried out on any such proposal

Following the meeting, Lib Dem Councillor Penny Ewens was in touch with senior planning officer Paul Gough by telephone. Here’s an extract from an email he sent her immediately afterwards :

Further to our telephone conversation, I thought I would drop you a line to let you know my thoughts on the suggestion that the proposed MUGA should be subject to further public consultation. Basically my view is that further consultation is unnecessary and would delay what is a very worthwhile project on a site which is in need of upgrading….I think that if we start a debate on the principle of the development it could seriously embarrass the Council, mislead the local community and get us into a legal minefield. If we do not carry out this project, all it would take is one person to make a legal challenge and we would be in trouble….There is no need to prevaricate over this and, in my view, we should proceed to the implementation stage.

I hope this is helpful advice.

It really is rich for Mr Gough to use the conversion of tennis courts on Woodhouse Moor to a MUGA as justification for his claim that there’s no demand for tennis courts in our area, when he himself was instrumental in bringing about the said conversion against the wishes of local people.

References

INWAC minutes 13.12.07
Paul Gough’s email 29.2.08

In a report submitted to Plan Panel West on the 12th August 2010, Chief Planning Officer Phil Crabtree claimed that under plans submitted by the school, only later additions to the historic Main School Building would be demolished. And at the meeting of Plans Panel West that took place on the 12th August 2010, senior planning officer Tony Clegg made the same claim.

When Messrs Crabtree and Clegg say that all the historic Main School Building will be retained, they are merely repeating what they have been told by the School.

The above image reveals that the plans submitted by School include demolition of the School Hall and the wings to either side of it. If you click on the image, it will enlarge and you will be able to read the School’s claim that the School Hall is a later addition. The School Hall and the wings form part of the original building opened by Princess Louise in 1906. The School Hall was visited by suffragette Sophie Jex Blake in 1907 when she described it at the prettiest school hall she had ever seen. Below are two pictures of the School Hall.