In response to the clamour of protests from local residents about last year’s mayhem on Woodhouse Moor, when trees and benches were burnt in bonfires, as both the police and Leeds City Council failed to enforce the no-barbeque byelaw, the council has responded – not by taking steps to enforce the byelaw, but by first getting the byelaws changed to make barbeque areas possible in principle, and now by proposing barbeque areas on Woodhouse Moor. There’s to be consultation, but apparently, it’s not aimed at local residents. There are to be two consultation events :
Friday 20th March, 5pm – 7pm at Leeds University Student Union Meeting Room 2 (upstairs in the ARC).
Thursday 26th March, 3pm – 7pm in the Bowls Pavilion, Woodhouse Moor. For a map showing the location of the bowling greens, please click on the words highlighted in green above.
Clearly the views of local residents don’t matter to our councillors, and neither does the waste of public resources given that between the 1st May and the 10th June 2008, the fire brigade was called out to Woodhouse Moor 29 times to extinguish fires (at a total cost of around £66,000 given an average call-out cost of £2,289). This contrasts with just three call-outs to Roundhay Park in the same period.