Leeds City Council Archives - Page 3 of 5 - HYDE PARK AND WOODHOUSE ONLINE

Councillors fear knock on effect on other parks

At this morning’s Scrutiny Board meeting, an application was heard from councillors John Illingworth and Linda Rhodes-Clayton for a reconsideration of the Executive Board decision to proceed with a barbeque area on Woodhouse Moor. During the course of the meeting, Councillor Mick Lyons asked, “If this is a trial, is it going to happen all over?”

This produced the following response from the councillor with responsibility for Parks and Countryside :

John Procter (Con) Mick Lyons is right. A few years ago disposable barbeques weren’t available. They’re an emerging phenomenon – cheap and easy. Parks were to cater for people who didn’t have gardens. Young people in the flats that have been built in the city centre want to go and have a barbeque. Other areas with city centre parks also have problems with barbeques – we’re at the start of something. When large numbers of our constituents are demanding something, we’ve got to listen. How did we think we could stop this ?

As a result of Councillor Procter’s statement, Labour councillors expressed concern for the city’s other parks :

Brian Selby (Lab) John Procter says “this is an emerging issue.” Looking at the flats that have gone up in Roundhay, there should be a trial at Roundhay Park, and at Temple Newsam. This seems to be happening because students enjoy it. Is this why Woodhouse Moor has been allowed to go ? Are we saying it’s too difficult with so many students ? Isn’t this the law of taking the line of least resistance ?

Tom Murray (Lab) It’s worrying that John Procter said that this is an emerging problem which could affect all our parks. So our policy at this stage should be that we will enforce our current byelaws. I’ve heard from residents about the trial that they would like. It embraces all the things that John Procter’s trial does. We’re talking about education, signage, and education. We could market it as “Parks for picnics.” Looking at this picture, I don’t see any criminals. Enforcement would be easy. The message would be “We have parks for picnics, not parks for barbeques”.

Unofficial minutes of the Scrutiny Board meeting 16.9.09

(Photo courtesy of Simon Grubb)

It’s official – barbecuing on the Moor isn’t Green !

At a meeting earlier today of the full council, the leader of the Green Party, Councillor David Blackburn made the following statement with regard to the council’s proposal to establish a dedicated barbeque area on Woodhouse Moor :

“I cannot agree with this scheme. Parks are not for having barbeques and it should be stopped.”

Councillor Blackburn and his colleagues have an excellent track record on environmental issues. In 2007, they left the ruling Lib Dem/Conservative coalition over their opposition to the council’s proposal to build an incinerator to dispose of the city’s rubbish. Their courageous stance on the incinerator proposal helped to persuade the council to abandon its plans and to choose a waste recycling system instead. It’s to be hoped that their clearly expressed opposition to the barbeque scheme will also be heeded.

The lowest ebb is the turn of the tide

A few weeks ago, the Executive Board went ahead and approved the Lib Dem scheme to establish barbeque areas on Woodhouse Moor. Their decision was not a surprise. At every preceding forum where the issue has been discussed, Lib Dem and Conservative councillors have voted to a man in favour of the scheme. There was no reason to suppose that the Executive Board would be the exception. Even so, their decision was a blow to local people. A further blow came this week with the suppression by Lib Dem councillors of key messages that local people had sent to the council’s area committee protesting against the barbeque proposal.

But now, just as it seemed that the voice of protest had been silenced, fresh voices of dissent have begun to be raised in other parts of the city. Councillors in other wards who are free to speak their own minds are speaking out against the barbeque scheme, recognising that the attack on Woodhouse Moor, is also an attack on every park on the city.

Reflecting on all of this, reminds me of the closing lines of Longfellow’s poem “Loss and Gain” :

Defeat may be victory in disguise;
The lowest ebb is the turn of the tide.

Photo courtesy of mr * p

BNP support for Lib Dem barbeque plan

Earlier today, BNP councillor Christopher Beverley voted with Lib Dem and Conservative councillors to reject an application for a review of the Executive Board’s decision to proceed with the barbeque scheme. The application had been made by Councillor John Illingworth (Labour, Kirkstall) and Councillor Linda Rhodes-Clayton (Independent, Hyde Park and Woodhouse) who argued that the council’s decision to proceed with the scheme failed to take into account the needs of disabled park users, especially those with breathing disorders. They said that the decision would make the park a no-go area for people with respiratory problems. Councillors heard from COPD sufferer Kathleen Mason how cigarette smoke from a passer-by on the street can badly interfere with her breathing. Kathleen explained that she had acquired her problem as a result of smoking, and passive smoking, and that as a result, if the barbeque scheme goes ahead, she will not not visit Woodhouse Moor again, and neither will she allow her grandchildren to go there. Councillors were shown photographs showing extensive smoke pollution from barbeques on the Moor. Following a discussion, the application was rejected by six votes to five with Lib Dem, Conservative and BNP councillors voting to reject the application, and Labour councillors voting to approve it.

(photo courtesy of mia)

Tony Green on the Executive Board decision to allow barbeque areas on the Moor

I attended the Executive Board meeting and enjoyed it enormously: Councillor Procter (Conservative) patronising the public and losing votes every time he opened his mouth; Councillor Golton (Lib Dem) sharing with us his touching family-reminiscences and concluding sagely that it is ‘a generational issue’: we are privileged to be represented by intellects like that: the torch of John Stuart Mill still burns bright (I wonder how many Lib Dem councillors have read On Liberty: it’s awfully good); poor Councillor Monaghan (Lib Dem) squirming to tow the party line while not alienating his voters: a treat to listen to (how he’s got himself tied up with this farce I can’t imagine; he ought to find a way of extricating himself.) Finally, seeing the vote go through on the nod, so that we all knew that the talk meant nothing, and it was all only done for the entertainment of the public. I recommend it to anybody. And it’s free. Except it isn’t. We pay the bill, in advance, and during, and retrospectively.

Another Leeds University assault on our area

In yet another assault on Hyde Park and Woodhouse, the City Centre plans panel this afternoon gave it’s approval to a planning application from Leeds University to relocate the School of Law to a single site at the junction of Moorland Road and Belle Vue Road. It will mean the demolition of the buildings shown in the photograph, and their replacement with buildings that will be twice their height. Development in a conservation area should enhance the area but the replacement buildings will be large, unattractive, and being on a prominent corner, they will dominate the area. And with their flat roofs, they will stick out like a sore thumb amongst Victorian stone and brick buildings with pitched roofs.

The Law School has an annual intake of 250 undergraduates. In addition it has 150 postgraduates, 40 research students and 65 permanent staff. This means the new building will bring 1,005 new people and their cars into this quiet residential area. And yet amazingly, the proposal will result in ten fewer on site car parking spaces than at present.

Traffic will increase on Belle View Road due to the new car park entrance being relocated to Belle Vue Road. And the new entrance will also mean less street parking for residents. In addition, all the site’s rubbish will be collected from Belle Vue Road rather than from within the site. It’s very wrong that Leeds University and Leeds City Council expect local residents to bear the cost of this development in terms of increased traffic, parking congestion and obstruction.

As with almost every other development that will negatively impact this area, there were no objections to this application from our local councillors. It was left to Councillors Elizabeth Nash, Ted Hanley and Ruth Feldman to speak against it, and they were outvoted.

Going after the student vote – part 3

Local residents were stunned when they learnt recently that the Lib Dems are trying making it easier for students to vote, regardless of whether this makes voting more difficult for other residents. Local resident Kathleen Mason felt so strongly about the Lib Dems’ proposal, that she wrote to the paper to complain about it. Three days later, the paper published a reply from someone called Steve Harris. Steve said that he completely agrees with Kathleen and added that the Lib Dems are not just doing this in Hyde Park and Woodhouse. According to Steve, they’ve also submitted a proposal to establish a polling station inside a large student residence which happens to be a gated community. The residence he’s referring to is Kirkstall Brewery where the Lib Dems have proposed that a polling station be established to cater for the student residents who number over a thousand. Steve believes that polling stations shouldn’t be closely associated with sectional groups in this way since it distorts the electoral process.

Reference

Lib Dem proposal 96

I assure you – if Labour is re-elected – we’ll undo this crazy scheme

Representatives from the three local community groups recently paid a visit to Keith Wakefield the leader of the Labour group to express their concern about the council’s clear determination to press ahead with its scheme to create designated barbeque areas on Woodhouse Moor in the face of overwhelming evidence that the consultation exercise was flawed. They showed him the same photographs of devastation that they have shown so many times to their own councillors, and explained to him how ordinary people now avoid the park whenever the weather is fine. They told him about the flawed consultation exercise and how the council rejects the testimony of residents who say they never received a survey form, preferring to believe the delivery company which claims to have delivered forms to every household but one of the 9,982 households that were supposed to receive them. They told him about the statistical evidence and the map that strongly indicate that residents are telling the truth when they say they never received forms. Councillor Wakefield said that he accepts that people are telling the truth and said the community has his full support in its fight to stop the barbeque scheme going ahead and that he’ll do all he can to help. And he gave this promise, “I assure you – if Labour is re-elected – we’ll undo this crazy scheme”.

Visible evidence that the survey forms were never delivered as claimed

Parks and Countryside and the delivery firm claim that 9,982 survey forms were delivered to all of the 454 streets that lie within 800 metres of the Moor’s perimeter. And they tell us that they’ve received back 587 forms from 155 streets. That means that 299 streets never returned a form. Statistician Paul Marchant has worked out that the likelihood of that happening is less that 13 in a billion. But scientific evidence like this doesn’t impress Leeds City Council. Neither are they impressed by the testimony of local residents who insist they haven’t received a form preferring to believe the delivery company. At this point most people would give up trying to persuade the council, but local residents hereabouts are a determined bunch of people, and one of them has produced this very revealing map. The red dots on it represent the 155 streets which according to Parks and Countryside returned forms. If you click on the map to enlarge it, you’ll see that the red dots are clustered in the Hyde Park area around the Harolds. This suggests that forms may have been delivered to these streets. Then there’s a sprinkling of red dots in the North Hyde Park area and the northern half of Woodhouse, and a very light sprinking in Little Woodhouse. These could be forms returned by people who picked them up at the drop-in sessions. Finally, there are no dots at all in the southern half of Woodhouse which strongly indicates that no forms were dleivered to this area.

It would be good if this additional evidence persuaded the council to abandon the consultation exercise. But experience suggests that this is unlikely.

Statistical evidence that the survey forms were never delivered as claimed

Statistician Paul Marchant has kindly agreed to let me publish an email he sent to the council explaining to them that the likelihood of receiving no survey forms from 299 streets is less than 13 in a billion. Paul addressed the email to Councillor Ryk Downes as Councillor Downes is the Scrutiny Board councillor who dismissed earlier statistical evidence indicating that the council’s consultation exercise is flawed. Paul sent a copy of the email to the INWAC councillors and the leaders of the three parties.

Dear Ryk,

I was told shortly after my original emailing that the number of streets I used was wrong and re-did the calculation based on the 454 valid streets. The results are basically the same in suggesting that getting responses from only 155 streets is improbable.

You seem to have some misunderstandings:

One does not need to assume that all streets have the same number of residents. My calculation assumes that the streets which did not respond only contained one house, to maximise the probability of non-response which is taken to be 1- 587/9982 i.e. 1- 5.9%. = 0.9412. The probability of none of the 299 streets generating even one response is, using the rule for independent probabilities, 0.9412 times itself 299 times or 13 parts in a billion….a very small number. (I chose the assumption of one house streets to maximise this probability, as any other choice will give an even smaller number.) Therefore I judge that there is a prima facie case suggesting that the exercise is flawed. Indeed I understand that several concerned local citizens say they did not receive the forms …. Why not believe them rather than the organisation doing the survey? As I said in my email, “What evidence can be given that the survey was carried out properly in the light of this improbable result?”

Your assertion that streets with 17 houses would ‘guarantee’ a response is not quite correct. It would not guarantee it …the average response equals one but is of course subject to probability and getting zero would be quite common…about 1/3.

Politicians seem to bandy statistics with an unwarranted air of confidence. You say “I believe ALL members of scrutiny were satisfied that enough data had been obtained.”…If your belief is correct, this is worrying…

It is true when you say that a sample of 1000 will estimate a proportion of a large population; say the proportion in favour of one of the major parties within a ‘margin of error’ of a few percent. It relies on equal selection probabilities. (A cook does not need to taste the whole of a pan of soup in order to know what the soup is like, sip will do. So it is with sampling, but it must be a fair sample!) In the BBQ survey it seems the selection probabilities are in fact unknown and it appears indeed that there is ‘something funny going on’ from the result above.

The ‘What is a Survey’ guide (elementary material) available at the American Statistical Association’s web site http://www.amstat.org/sections/srms/

See http://www.whatisasurvey.info/ . (I recommend it in my work at Leeds Metropolitan University). It outlines problems in surveys such as that due to non-response. The book ‘Survey Research Methods’ by Floyd Fowler is fairly light and good.

I would encourage the council to engage proper professional statistical advice for statistical issues. The danger is that otherwise the ‘information’ obtained is likely to be bunkum.

Yours sincerely,

Paul Marchant