When the full council met this afternoon, Councillor Bernard Atha gave the following address setting out his views on the council’s plan to establish a designated barbeque area on Woodhouse Moor :

There is immense opposition from the local community to barbeques on Woodhouse Moor.  This is the fourth major attack on the Moor by the Lib Dems.  When they first came into power, they tried to turn part of Woodhouse Moor into a car park for the university.  Then they wanted to make a large part of it into soccer pitches for the university.  Then they were wanting to widen the A660 at the point where it crosses the Moor, the widest stretch of the road between the city centre and West Park. The fourth major attack is barbeques.  It’s important to protect the Moor, and so let’s not allow them to take away a piece of the park like a burglar.

They say they’re allowing just one area for barbeques. But this will have no effect unless it’s policed. If they can’t police the existing byelaw banning barbeques, how will they do it when it’s restricted to a small area ?  We’re told it’s not going to be concrete.  Have they found grass that doesn’t burn ?  Where is it going to be ?  How will it be demarcated ?

The police have said that they’ll cooperate if we enforce the bylaws. Well then, let’s enforce the byelaws.  Only a handful of prosecutions in the courts would be necessary .

Woodhouse Moor is valuable.  It’s sacred to some people.  Let’s do away with barbeques on it, enforce the byelaws and it will all be sorted out by next year.