HYDE PARK AND WOODHOUSE ONLINE - Page 15 of 17 - what's happening in our area

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

Our councillors’ ideal resident

Last Summer, our councillors sponsored a DPPO (Designated Public Places Order) intended to ban anti-social drinking in public in parts of Little London and on Hanover and Woodhouse Squares. The DPPO was opposed by North Hyde Park Neighbourhood Association, South Headingley Community Association and Friends of Woodhouse Moor, on the grounds that street drinkers displaced from the areas to be covered by the DPPO, would move to Woodhouse Moor. On the 2nd July last year, the three community associations went as a deputation to a meeting of the full council and asked for Woodhouse Moor to be included in the DPPO. The next day, at an INWAC meeting, Councillor Sue Bentley (Lib Dem, Weetwood) said that “this vociferous group of people” must not be allowed to prevent the residents who live around Hanover Square from enjoying the protection of a DPPO. She added that Woodhouse Moor is big enough to absorb the problem of street drinkers, echoing the view of the police at that time.

Then on the 25th September 2008, at another INWAC meeting, when I pointed out that it would be inappropriate for St George’s Crypt to move to the former St Michael’s College building since it was located on the other side of the road from a former council housing estate where there are families with young children, Councillor Jamie Matthews (Lib Dem, Headingley) called me a Nimby.

When we don’t agree with what they’re trying to do, our councillors apply labels to us. By labelling us, they think they don’t have to deal with the logic of our arguments. Our councillors don’t want residents who think and understand the issues, they want sheep who will follow them blindly.

(photo courtesy of David Masters)

A History of Woodhouse

Woodhouse is a fantastic place, possibly the most historic and interesting place in the city. Not many people know this, but all of the area now covered by what we now know as Hyde Park and Woodhouse ward, was originally known as Woodhouse. It included all of the university precinct, Little London, Hyde Park, North Hyde Park, Little Woodhouse, and Woodhouse. You can see that Woodhouse Moor got its name because it was centrally placed within Woodhouse. We no longer know all of the original boundary of Woodhouse, but we do know that part of its boundary with Headingley ran along Cliff Lane in what we now call North Hyde Park.

Neil Hudson, the author of the Yorkshire Evening Post’s Yorkshire Diary column has published a short history of Woodhouse entitled “Never a dull moment . . “ It’s a fascinating story in which Woodhouse Moor consistently plays a major part – just as it does today.

The above photograph shows Temperance Hall, also known as Woodhouse Mechanics Institute. The local Temperance Movement was one of the groups that in the early 1850s pressed for Leeds Town Council to purchase Woodhouse Moor.

Residents left out in the cold

At the last INWAC meeting on the 2nd April, the chair, Councillor Monaghan (Lib Dem, Headingley) promised to arrange a meeting between councillors and representatives of the three local community groups. The meeting was supposed to have taken place at 2pm this afternoon at Wrangthorn Church Hall. Unfortunately it never took place. Two days ago, Councillor Monaghan cancelled it on the grounds that it had been arranged to discuss the result of the consultation, and that since those results had been delayed, there was no point holding the meeting. But the purpose of the meeting had never been to discuss the results of a flawed consultation. The meeting was to discuss the concerns of local residents and had been offered solely as a result of the protests made by local residents at the last INWAC meeting.

The community associations who’d been invited made clear to Councillor Monagahn that they did not accept the reason he’d given for cancelling the meeting, and said that they would be attending as originally planned, and expected to see him and his colleagues at Wrangthorn. But when they got to Wrangthorn, the hall was locked. The councillors and council officers they’d been hoping to meet, never turned up.

Instead of deciding unilaterally to cancel the meeting, how much more democratic it would have been had Councillor Monaghan explained his point of view, and asked if the community groups still wished to proceed with the meeting. If residents’ views on such a relatively minor issue as a meeting don’t matter to our councillors, it helps to explain why they’re hell-bent on proceeding to the bitter end with a consultation exercise in which only 25% of us have received survey forms.

Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s land

In January 2007, a deal was signed between Leeds City Council and Leeds University whereby in exchange for receiving £255,697, Leeds City Council agreed to construct two mini soccer pitches and a MUGA (multi use games area) on Woodhouse Moor. The person who engineered this deal was Robert Sladdin, Director of Estates at Leeds University. In addition to getting Leeds City Council to agree to build sports facilities on the Moor, as part of the deal Mr Sladdin got planning permission from the council to build on the former Grammar School Protected Playing Pitch.

Fresh from this triumph, on the 28th February 2008, Mr Sladdin gave a presentation of his University of Leeds Strategic Development Framework to a Leeds City Council planning committee. During the presentation, he revealed that he wants the university to take over the roundabout in front of the Parkinson Building. It seems that the roundabout is owned by Leeds City Council who have not been maintaining it, with the consequence that Leeds University has been obliged to carry out that task. Mr Sladdin said he wants to tarmac over the roundabout so that the area can be used as a dropping off point for coaches, taxis and private cars. He said that this would relieve the current congestion in the area.

For most of my lifetime the roundabout was well-maintained and laid out as a large flowerbed. From Spring to Autumn, it was a riot of colour. I used to admire it every day when I passed it. Ever since the university took it upon itself to maintain the roundabout, it’s been grassed over. The grass has many bare patches because so many people walk across it.

The Parkinson Building is probably the most impressive building in the city after the Town Hall. It was built using money given to the university by businessman and former student Frank Parkinson (1887-1946) That the people in charge of Leeds University should now want to convert the area in front of it into a vehicle dropping off point, raises questions about their fitness to be in charge of such an important part of their own and the city’s architectural heritage.

The likely outcome is that Leeds City Council will hand over yet more of our green space so that the university can tarmac it over. And you can bet that the council will grant planning permission for the project. How could they object ? This guardian of our heritage has itself been using the area in front of the Town Hall as a car park for the past 70 years.

And if Robert Sladdin feels obliged to maintain the roundabout because Leeds City Council won’t do it, I’m surprised he doesn’t feel a similar obligation to maintain Woodhouse Moor, given that it too is immediately adjacent to the university.

Councillors play-acting

There was an article in today’s Yorkshire Evening Post about INWAC agreeing to give £20,000 to a £1million project to add hanging baskets and pocket parks to Woodhouse. The article doesn’t make clear if the £1million has definitely been allocated, or if it’s just an amount that’s aspired to. If it has been allocated, the money is probably section 106 money. Section 106 money is the legal bribe paid to the council by developers when it grants them planning permission to do things like knocking down Perseverance Mills so a student tower block could be built on the site, allowing building on school playing fields in the area, allowing a student development on Shay Street, and giving Leeds University planning permission to build on the former Grammar School Protected Playing Pitch. The article also states that Councillor Kabeer Hussain (Lib Dem, Hyde Park and Woodhouse) has agreed to give £10,000 from money that councillors are allowed to allocate towards projects in their ward.

The YEP article was based on a Lib Dem press release.

Do our councillors not realise that hanging baskets do not make up for the loss of playing fields and historic buildings ? And do they really expect us to believe that the same people who were so enthusiastic about the proposal to build a pay and display car park three years ago on Woodhouse Moor, have suddenly turned over a new, green leaf ?

(photo courtesy of xiaming)