Bill, Author at HYDE PARK AND WOODHOUSE ONLINE

Back to school

Last night’s INWAC meeting was held at Hawksworth Wood Primary School, and it was just like being back at school for the many residents who had made the effort to attend. Newly elected chair Councillor Ben Chastney had clearly done his homework before the meeting and come up with a rule that allows him to prevent people asking questions. When people wanted to ask senior Parks and Countryside officer Phil Staniforth questions related to Woodhouse Moor, Councillor Chastney announced that questions could only be put if they were tabled in advance ! And so Mr Staniforth was spared having to answer any awkward questions. And councillors were spared the embarrassment that might have resulted.

And then Councillor Hamilton said he’d heard about the recent Hyde Park and Woodhouse Forum, and how unpleasant it had been. Councillor Hamilton said that councillors treat residents with respect, and that residents should reciprocate by showing respect to councillors.

I’ve deliberately refrained from mentioning what occurred at that Forum to spare Councillor Ewens any embarrassment. But now that the issue has been raised at INWAC, and since residents had no opportunity to reply, the record needs to be set straight.

Councillor Ewens drew up the agenda for the last Hyde Park and Woodhouse Forum without asking residents beforehand what they’d like to see on it. This is something Councillor Ewens always does, but on this occasion, residents voted for a different agenda, and as a result, Councillor Ewens offered to resign as chair. That was it. There was no unpleasantness.

And in relation to Councillor Ewens, the record also needs to be set straight regarding what Councillor Hamilton said about councillors treating residents with respect. It was not respect that Councillor Ewens was showing when she excluded residents from the multi-agency meetings that took place a year ago and which came up with the barbeque proposal – it was contempt.

Cashing in on our parks

In the Parks and Greenspace Strategy published earlier this year, Leeds City Council set out the ways it wants to make money from our parks. Since the strategy didn’t go into detail, it left us wondering how it would be implemented. Then a few weeks ago, Parks and Countryside showed that making money out of parks doesn’t have to mean selling off or leasing assets, or setting up chargeable facilities. it can be done by hiring our parks out to television companies who want to film there. That’s what happened recently to Hanover Square when independent television literally took over the Square for several weeks while they carried out filming for a new drama series. The marquee shown above was one of their props.

During the course of filming, the road at the bottom of the square was almost impassible as one side of it became a car park for the heavy lorries needed to store the equipment required for filming. Even though the lorries were partly parked on the pavement, the police and civil enforcement officers did nothing to enforce the law which makes it an offence to mount the kerb. And neither was any action taken when the production company flloodlit the entire square so that filming could continue into the early hours of the morning. Night literally became day for the residents of Hanover Square. Just another example of Leeds City Council’s lack of respect for local residents and their determination to exploit this area for all it’s worth. And when the tarmac cracks on the pavement at the bottom of Hanover Square, who will pay to repair the damage?

The road widening threat to Woodhouse Moor is back, and it’s called NGT

Last Thursday, the 18th June, Leeds City Council and Metro unveiled their plans for New Generation Transport (NGT), a scheme that would see trolleybuses running in leeds for the first time since 1928. The plan is to have three routes; the East Route, the South Route, and the North Route, with the trolleybuses running along dedicated bus lanes wherever possible

The North Route would run along the line of the A660. Because there’s no plan to knock down any of the buildings opposite the university, this would create a bottleneck at the junction of the A660 and Clarendon Road. To cope with this bottleneck, traffic would be stacked on Woodhouse Moor. This would be done either by widening the existing road between Rampart Road and Clarendon Road, or by building a new road across Monument moor. The second option exists because the Highways Department are aware of local sensitivity about losing the avenue of trees.

The stated aim of the scheme is to create an improved public transport system using dedicated bus lanes wherever possible. But if that’s the aim, then it could be achieved by creating dedicated bus lanes within the existing highway.

This scheme would affect Woodhouse Moor in an almost identical manner to the scheme proposed by Highways at the end of last year. At that time, we were told that the road widening was necessary to facilitate a pedestrian crossing on Clarendon Road.

A new website has been set up to keep people informed about this latest threat to our area – New Generation Transport

Where is the cost-benefit analysis in support of designated barbeque areas ?

In their report to the Executive Board dated the 8th October 2008, Parks and Countryside accept that the use of barbeques on the Moor causes damage to the park and is associated with anti-social behaviour. The report then states that their preferred solution to the problem is to restrict barbecuing to designated areas of the park, so as to contain the problem, rather than to prohibit it.

But the provision of designated areas alone will neither solve the problem, nor contain it. Continual monitoring will be needed to prevent barbeques being lit elsewhere than in the designated areas. At the same time, these areas will need continual maintenance and cleansing to ensure that they remain useable and do not become eyesores.

Since the report’s authors have rejected the request for park wardens on the ground that this would “not be the best use of limited resources available in the budget,” the report should provide evidence in the form of cost-benefit analysis, that the provision of designated areas would be a more effective use of resources than the provision of park wardens. In the absence of such evidence, the proposal to establish designated barbeque areas should have been rejected by the Executive Board. Instead, they’ve initiated a costly consultation exercise to gauge support for the proposal, an exercise which is itself flawed, just like the proposal.

References

Report of the Director of Development dated 8 October 2008

When the end justifies the means, truth is the first casualty

In February 2006, Leeds City Council’s Department for Learning and Leisure obtained £170,341 to build a pay and display car park on Woodhouse Moor. They obtained the funds by telling Leeds City Council’s Director of Resources there had been consultation with local community groups. In reality, there had been no consultation. (1)

Then in November 2008, when the council’s Highways Department wanted to widen the inbound lane of the A660 where it crosses Woodhouse Moor, in order to obtain £135,000 to fund the planning of the project, they told the Director of Resources that there had been consultation with local community groups. Again, this wasn’t true. If the project had gone ahead, it would have obliterated the avenue of trees and York stone pavement adjacent to the inbound lane of the A660 between Rampart Road and Clarendon road. (2)

Shortly before this in October 2008, in a report that dismissed local people’s request for park wardens to enforce the byelaws, and instead proposed designated barbeque areas, Parks and Countryside told Leeds City Council’s Executive Board that local community groups including Friends of Woodhouse Moor had been present at multi agency meetings. The minutes of these meetings held in May,June and July 2008, show that they gave rise to the proposal for designated barbeque areas. They also show that local community groups had not been present. When challenged about the discrepancy between the report which states that community groups had been present at the meetings, and the minutes, which show that they hadn’t, Parks and Countryside claimed that a meeting attended by Friends of Woodhouse Moor on the 10th May 2007 had also been a multi agency meeting. (3)

References

Design and Cost Report dated 9 January 2006
Design and Cost Report dated 24 November 2008
Report of the Director of Development dated 8 October 2008

The views of the parties responsible for this fiasco

These are the views of the parties who were present at the multi agency meetings that took place in May, June and July last year.

Councillor Penny Ewens (chair)

“Where are people without gardens to have barbeques if not on the Moor?”

Councillor Jamie Matthews

“The reports of anti social behaviour have been exaggerated. If some people had their way, they’d stop everyone having fun”.

Amanda Jackson (Leeds University)

Concern that the media had exaggerated the scale of the problem.

Parkswatch

They say they’ve had instructions not to do anything about barbeques, and that the byelaws have nothing to do with them.

The two student reps

Students not to blame.

Police

About the endless partying on the Moor “It’s wonderful. A real carnival atmosphere.”

And like Parkswatch, the police repeatedly say that the byelaws have nothing to do with them.

With views like these, it’s no wonder that the parties to the multi agency meeting came up with a solution to the problem which by legitimising the existing situation, allows them to continue to shirk their responsiblities. The only reason we have a problem, is because of the refusal by the police and the council to enforce the byelaws. What’s happening on the Moor is not some kind of natural disaster outside their control.

References

Councillor Ewens said this at the Civic Hall on the 10th May 2007.
Councillor Matthews said this at an INWAC meeting on the 3rd July 2008.
Amanda Jackson is minuted as having expressed this concern at the multi agency meeting on the 16th May 2008.
This was said to one of the Friends by Parkswatch officers on the Moor on the 29th May 2009 when he asked them why they weren’t doing anything to stop illegal barbeques.
The two student reps expressed this sentiment in letters to the YEP published on the 19th May 2008.
The statement about the “wonderful carnival atmosphere” on the Moor was made by a police sergeant at Kendal Carr on the 19th June 2008.

The Politics of Division

As a result of the barbeque mayhem that began in May last year, instead of enforcing the byelaws, our councillors arranged Multi Agency meetings. These were held on the 16th May, the 18th June, and 17th July 2008. The minutes of these meetings have recently become available and show that they were attended by Councillor Penny Ewens (chair), Councillor Jamie Matthews, representatives from Parks and Countryside, Leeds University, and both student unions. At item 4.7 of the minutes from the 16th May 2008, it states:

“A discussion was had about having a designated barbeque area. It was agreed that an idea such as this would need to be consulted on. Phil Staniforth will look at what options are available and liaise with Area Management”.

And at paragraph 4.1 of the minutes from the 17th July 2009, it states that Leeds University:

“will publicise agreement on by-laws once made”.

What agreement was this ? To change the city’s byelaws ? To get students to vote for designated barbeque areas ? And in exchange for what ?

Points to note :

Even though local residents only found out about the proposal in March 2009, planning for it had been going on for 10 months.
Local residents were not invited to attend these meetings.
Officers from the student unions attended all 3 meetings.

Then in December 2008, with residents still unaware of the barbeque consultation, a student union rep gave the following report to his colleagues on the executive about the DPPO and barbeque consultations:

-Gathering letters to send in for the 2 separate consultations and had a UCR publicity day.

– Support for the barbecue is overwhelming with 50 letters in support and 10 against.

– DPPO is split with about 20 letters each way.

– More letters coming in daily.

The process has clearly included one section of the community (students) and excluded everyone else. The appearance is that our councillors have known what they wanted to do for over a year and have deliberately worked with the one section of the community that they thought would be supportive, and deliberately kept the section that they knew wouldn’t agree with them in the dark until the very last minute.

References

Minutes of meeting of the 16th May 2008
Minutes of meeting of the 18th June 2008
Minutes of meeting of the 17th July 2008

Extract from student union rep Rob Damaio update report – Dec 08

Key Lie Pie

The council wants you to believe that it had no option but to change the byelaws to make it possible to have designated barbeque areas in parks, claiming that there had been changes to the government’s model byelaws, and that amendments were needed to the city’s byelaws to make them conform to the now supposedly amended model byelaws. The truth is that there had been no change to the government’s model byelaws. The latest edition of the model byelaws was published in December 2005. The council introduced byelaws based on those model byelaws in August 2006. There was no need to amend those byelaws in September 2008 as claimed by the council, as there had been no change to the model byelaws. The fact that the council is lying about why it changed the byelaws means that the real reason must be very embarrassing. And what could be more embarrassing than to change the entire city’s byelaws, just so it can get out of its duty to enforce the byelaw banning barbeques on Woodhouse Moor ?

The fact to remember in all this is that the byelaws were changed following Councillor Martin Hamilton’s statement at INWAC on the 3rd July 2008 that he now favoured the idea of barbeque areas on Woodhouse Moor.

(Photo courtesy of kundalini)

Death Wish

By using students to help them establish barbeque areas on Woodhouse Moor, either our councillors have forgotten that the May 2010 local elections are now less than a year away, and that it’s generally local residents who vote at such elections, or they have an electoral death wish.

If their problem is forgetfulness, it may be that they’re suffering from early (Lib) dementia. But if their problem is that they have an electoral death wish, it suggests something far more serious, toxoplasmosis. My guess is that toxoplasmosis is the more likely explanation as one of the symptoms of the disease is that sufferers lose all sense of fear and indulge in reckless behaviour.

Toxoplasmosis is generally acquired by eating undercooked meat, of the sort you get at barbeques.

(photo courtesy of Ke Hu and John Murray)

Knife edge majorities

Kabeer Hussain – May 2007 – working majority 353

Labour 32.41% 1037
Conservative 6.25% 200
Liberal Democrat 43.44% 1390

Penny Ewens – May 2008 – working majority 64

Labour 38.23% 1142
Conservative 7.33% 219
Liberal Democrat 40.37% 1206

Linda Rhodes-Clayton – May 2006 – working majority 27

Labour 37.34% 1072
Conservative N/A
Liberal Democrat 38.28% 1099

James Monaghan – May 2007 – working majority 626

Labour 22.75% 577
Conservative 9.38% 238
Liberal Democrat 47.44% 1203

Jamie Matthews – May 2008 – working majority 291

Labour 29.32% 730
Conservative 12.77% 318
Liberal Democrat 41.00% 1021

Martin Hamilton – May 2006 – working majority 426

Labour 24.91% 641
Conservative 11.62% 299
Liberal Democrat 41.47% 1067