Sue Buckle presents the community’s concerns about the police move to MP Hilary Benn

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The police want to move from their Belle Vue Road depot to a new location on The police want to move from their Belle Vue Road depot to a new location on the university campus. They say the move has been made necessary by the need for costly repairs to the depot, and the opportunity to reduce annual overheads from £130,000 to £20,000 per annum. This afternoon, Sue Buckle, chair of South Headingley Community Association, presented MP Hilary Benn with a list of the community’s concerns:

  1. Why has it suddenly come about that all these repairs are necessary?
  2. Why haven’t the police been maintaining their estate?
  3. Why are they refusing to produce a copy of any report showing what repairs are necessary and copies of estimates showing the cost of carrying them out?
  4. Why have the police only considered premises on the university campus?
  5. Why is there no report with cost benefit analysis showing the evaluation of a number of alternatives?
  6. Why are they rushing into signing an agreement they’ll be tied into for years?
  7. Why was Commander Oldroyd telling us on the 9th May that it’s a “done deal” when the deadline for objections to their planning application 12/01402/FU is today the 18th May? Surely they’ve not signed a tenancy agreement with the university in advance of obtaining planning permission.
  8. Given that Norman Bettison is so keen on co-location with the community, why didn’t they consider Swarthmore or Royal Park School?
  9. How will the police deal with complaints against the university, when the university is their landlord? Haven’t the police learnt any lessons from the phone hacking scandal?
  10. Why were elected members not consulted?
  11. Why has the local community not been consulted?
  12. Why are police of the North West Division moving to a site that’s on the boundary with the police’s City and Holbeck Division? How can it be efficient to base police officers belonging to the North West Division immediately adjacent to the City and Holbeck Division?
  13. How can it be efficient to base the police within the university campus, a site which already has its own security staff? This must be the safest location in the city. It will take PCSOs 10 minutes walking through the campus before they reach the residential areas to the north.
  14. Commander Oldroyd says the annual overheads at the Belle Vue Road depot are £130,000. He says the rent at the university campus site will be £20,000 and that there will be savings of over £100,000. How can the savings be so great, when the police own the Belle Vue Road depot and pay no rent for it?
  15. Why is the council’s Highways department accepting that there will be no parking implications when 170 police get transferred to the university campus, most of whom use cars? It’s true the university say they will allocate 22 spaces to the police. But the university doesn’t even have sufficient spaces for its own staff. In fact, the situation is so bad in and around the university that university staff park their cars on residential streets in Hyde Park.

Mr Benn promised to take these issues up with Commander Oldroyd.

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For an account of a recent meeting between the police and the community called specifically to discuss this issue, please see this article.

And for further information relating to the move, please see this article.

Launch of New Conservation Area and NHPNA AGM

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At this evening’s launch of theses new Headingley, Hyde Park and Woodhouse At this evening’s launch of the new Headingley, Hyde Park and Woodhouse Moor Conservation Area, guests heard talks from the architects of the new area, Phil Ward, Tony Ray and Pam Bone. Phil is Leeds City Council’s Chief Conservation Officer, Tony is a town planning consultant, and Pam is the local resident who brought everyone together and made it happen.

Amongst the invited guests were Councillor Gerry Harper, Councillor Neil Walshaw, newly elected Councillor Janette Walker, and Yorkshire Evening Post reporter Suzanne McTaggart.

After everyone had had an opportunity to ask questions, the next item on the agenda was the North Hyde Park Neighbourhood Association Annual General Meeting. Chairman Tony Green began by explaining that there was a need to increase the annual subscription, which had remained at £3 per household for as long as anyone could remember. It was agreed by all present that it should be increased to £3 per adult member. Tony went on to say he would be grateful for volunteers to assist with events on Dagmar so that these popular occasions can continue. Finally, three new members were voted onto the committee.

It was an extremely enjoyable evening, and I am sure everyone present would wish to join me in thanking Josie Green for arranging the magnificently presented and delicious refreshments.

This is the new Headingley Hill, Hyde Park and Woodhouse Moor Conservation Area Appraisal.

Council offers sheltered housing residents £4,000 each to quit Kendal Carr

Kendal Carr is a long established sheltered housing complex in the heart of Kendal Carr is a long established sheltered housing complex in the heart of Little Woodhouse. It is owned and run by Leeds City Council

I learnt recently that the council has offered each resident £4,000 to quit. A lady I spoke to who know several of the residents of Kendal Carr, told me she thinks that if they have to move, it will kill some of them.

No doubt the majority of the residents had planned on living out their days at Kendal Carr. £4,000 is a lot of money, especially to someone who may not have any. It’s to be hoped that no resident is persuaded by this cash inducement to act against their own best interests.

Staff from Santander help to create a forest garden on Bedford Fields

Bedford Fields is the large area of green space located at the top of Woodhouse Cliff. City of Leeds school now occupies the bulk of the site, and in recent years, the remainder has become badly overgrown with brambles and nettles. But now with help from the staff of Santander in Morley, permaculture enthusiast Joanna Dorman is transforming the area into a forest garden.

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The aim is to plant the area with fruit trees with an under-planting of ground cover bushes. Several are already well established and are surrounded by herbs such as borage, hyssop and comfrey. Alder and gorse have also been planted to fix nitrogen in the soil.

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A hard-working Santander team member

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The team from Santander worked extremely hard this afternoon to help further clear the area, uprooting bramble roots and nettles with energy and enthusiasm, undaunted by the blazing Autumn sun and temperatures reaching into the mid twenties. They also brought wood chippings onto the site so these could be laid onto cardboard that will be used to prevent re-growth from any bramble and nettle roots that might remain in the earth.

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Team Santander

Festival of Britain – documentary film

The documentary “1951 Festival of Britain, Brave New World” will be shown on BBC2 at 8PM on Saturday 24th September 2011. It will include footage from “Travelling Exhibition” local film-maker Eric Hall’s short film about the visit of the Festival of Britain Land Travelling Exhbition to Woodhouse Moor.

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Plan to remove a section of 30 year old hawthorn hedge at the bottom of Belle Vue Road and replace it with a fence

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The history of the hedge

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When Barratt Developments was given planning permission in October 1979 (ref 79/26/01088) to build a small housing estate at the bottom of Belle Vue Road, the planning authority imposed the following condition:

Garden/planted areas where they abut footpaths to be used by the public shall be demarcated and bounded by walls, hedges or fencing of a type or style to be approved in writing by the city council before erection or planting and together with the planting and landscaping shown on the plan hereby approved, shall be provided by the developer concurrently with the erection of the houses hereby approved or within one planting season of the commencement of building operations on the site, whichever is appropriate.

And so it was that a hawthorn hedge was planted at the top of the steep grassy bank at the bottom of Belle Vue Road. The hedge borders the entire length of the footpath known as Kendal Walk.

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View of Kendal Walk with the hedge on the left

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The current planning application

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The developer Rushbond has applied for planning permission (reference 11/03649/FU) to replace a section of the now 30 year old hawthorn hedge with a metal railing fence (here are the details). If the scheme goes ahead, Kendal Walk will look less like a country lane, and in the Spring, Summer and early Autumn, people walking along the affected section will no longer brush against protective hawthorn fronds as they pass. Instead of experiencing this close contact with Nature, they will be exposed to the uninspiring view of the tower blocks that comprise the Little Woodhouse student village.

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View of the hedge from Belle Vue Road

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The argument for removing the hedge

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It is being claimed that roots from the hedge are causing the clay sub-soil beneath a two storey extension to 6 Kendal Rise to dry out. It is further claimed that this drying of the sub-soil has led to subsidence of the extension. The claim is based on the finding of a lab report dated 22 September 2009 that a sample of soil taken from 6 Kendal Rise on 8 September 2009 contained roots of the sub-family “Pomoideae.” Because the sub-family Pomoideae includes hawthorn, the inference is that the roots are from the hawthorn hedge. But are they? Several of the gardens of the Kendal estate were planted with hawthorn trees, and the plan that was approved on the 16th May 1980 shows that approval was given for a hawthorn tree in the front garden of 6 Kendal Rise, just in front of where the two storey extension is now located. If hawthorn roots have been found beneath 6 Kendal Rise, it is far more likely that they originate from this on-site hawthorn tree, than from the hedge, as the hedge is further away and on the other side of a tarmac path.

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6 Kendal Rise

Extract of plan approved 16 May 1980 with added explanation

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More likely reasons for subsidence

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  1. The two storey extension was built too close to a steep slope.
  2. The foundations for the two storey extension are not deep enough. Where hawthorn roots are present, foundations should be to a depth of 2.1 metres (see this guide).
  3. Covering over the side garden with the two story extension, and the back garden with a very large garage, will have caused the clay sub-soil to dry out.
  4. Raising the level of the front garden by adding additional soil to it will have helped the clay-sub-soil to dry out. And by adding even more weight to the top of the slope, the additional soil will have have increased the likelihood of subsidence, already made highly likely by locating the two storey extension on the edge of the slope.
  5. Satellite imagery taken on 30 May 2009 shows that at that time, the front garden of 6 Kendal Rise contained a very large cherry tree. This was located very close to the house itself, and has since been cut down, though the remains of its massive trunk remain visible. This tree will undoubtedly have caused drying out of the clay sub-soil.
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    Satellite imagery taken on 30 May 2009 showing a large cherry tree in the garden of 6 Kendal Rise

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Possible reasons to refuse this application

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  1. Hedges are easy to maintain, whereas fences fall down if they are not maintained.
  2. Fences are subject to vandalism.
  3. This is a very windy hillside. Hedges diffuse winds.
  4. Hedges reduce noise.
  5. Hawthorn is the perfect hedging for nesting birds.
  6. Birds can roost in hedges. They cannot roost on metal railings.
  7. Hedges support insect life.
  8. In Spring, this hedge is covered in beautiful scented white May blossom, and in Autumn with colourful red berries, which birds such as blackbirds love to eat in the Winter when food is scarce.
  9. Hedges renew themselves every Spring. Fences become tatty and covered in graffiti.
  10. The hedge is situated at the top of a steep grassy bank. The roots of the hedge will be helping to stop the earth from falling down the bank. This is probably why the hedge was insisted upon by the planning authority as part of a soft landscaping condition when planning permission was granted to build the Kendal estate.
  11. The hedge is a planning condition imposed by the local authority on the developer when planning consent was granted in October 1979.
  12. The proposed fence would block a path down the grassy bank that people have been using for the past 30 years.
  13. Hawthorn is a native British species which can live up to 400 years. Planners often insist on native species when attaching soft landscaping conditions to planning consents.
  14. Hawthorn does not have a large root system. This may explain why it is so often planted immediately adjacent to paths and houses.
  15. The hedge has been a prominent and highly valued feature of the local landscape for 30 years. People would miss it.
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Information about Hawthorn

gardenguides.com (online article)