Byelaws – Page 5 – Woodhouse Moor Online

BERNARD ATHA’S VIEW : THE MOOR IS UNDER SUSTAINED ATTACK

May 4, 2009 Bill Comments 1 comment

On Friday the 1st May, Councillor Bernard Atha issued the following statement :

“The Moor is under sustained attack now. Every day sees further damage.
I am opposed totally to the proposals for the barbecue slabs. They would not be allowed in Roundhay or Horsforth or Guiseley. Why Woodhouse?
I have asked that this proposal be submitted for planning application. I have not yet had a response after more than a week.
I have asked that big notices be put up saying barbecues are a breach of the bye laws and offenders will be prosecuted.
I have asked that local funds available to the Councillors are used to pay for extra police supervision and enforcement.
I have pointed out that the Lib Dems could stop this scheme now. Labour has 42 votes in the Council and the nine Lib Dems have nine in Inner North West Leeds making sure that any proposal to stop the scheme and save the Moor could be carried.
I have objected to the views expressed by the local Lib Dem Councillor James Matthews that as we cannot police the park we had better control it by this plan.
I object to the other Lib Dems who say they await the result of the consultation which, as many have written in to say, is a fraud as so many local residents have not received the consultation document which in itself was designed to produce the answer required.
I object to the statement made by the Lib Dems who say that the scheme is Cllr John Procter’s idea. He is a Tory. The idea has not come from John Procter I am sure, and in any case the Lib Dems and the Conservatives have formed a coalition and the Lib Dems are the biggest Party in that coalition.

We must defeat this stupid and damaging proposal and collectively make sure the Moor is protected and supervised properly.
The Lib Dem coalition has mounted a series of attacks on the Moor : making part of it a car park, turning over a large area to accommodate University pitches, a drinking den for easier supervision of the alcoholics displaced from elsewhere and hacking away a substantial strip of it to form a bus lane to ease traffic on what is the widest stretch of road on this extremely busy route out of Leeds. These have all been schemes produced by the coalition in which the Lib Dems are the largest Party.”

(published courtesy of Bernard Atha)

Residents give a resounding “No” to concrete slabs on Moor

April 29, 2009 Ian Harker Comments 0 Comment

Heated debate over barbecue proposals

Yorkshire Evening Post, 29 April 2009

Leeds’s Woodhouse Moor is in danger of destruction from both Council policy and barbecue parties, a public meeting was told. Richard Hellawell, who lives in the Kendals, said by-laws banning barbecues on the moor had to be enforced.

Speaking at Woodhouse Community Centre Mr Hellawell said: “Woodhouse Moor is a beautiful open space, it is a wonderful lung. “It is in danger of being destroyed by those who have barbecues, or by the councillors who will put concrete monstrosities on there. The existing by-laws ban barbecues, the police do not enforce them so it is up to the Council to do it.”

This story is reproduced with kind permission of the Editor.

LOCAL RESIDENTS CALL FOR ENFORCEMENT OF THE EXISTING BYELAWS ON BARBEQUES

April 24, 2009 Bill Comments 0 Comment

Once again the council’s scheme for barbeque areas has been in the news with two letters about it published in the Yorkshire Evening Post. The first letter was published on Wednesday and was from local resident Kathleen Mason who gives several very good reasons why the scheme is a bad idea, and the consultation exercise, undemocratic. At the end of her letter, Kathleen says she doesn’t want the smell nor the sight of this activity, nor any more money spending on the proposed scheme. I know just what Kathleen means. When I cut across the Moor on my way home this evening, I had to walk through barbeque smoke for the entire length of the path that runs alongside the bowling greens towards the Wellington statue. It was horrible.

The second letter was published on Thursday and was from pensioner Elizabeth Leigh. Elizabeth’s heart goes out to the gardener John Egan and his colleagues, who every morning after it’s been warm and sunny, have to begin their day by spending hours cleaning up the mess. Elizabeth asks why the council doesn’t employ park wardens to enforce the existing byelaws, instead of spending thousands on the current consultation exercise.

NOT ROCKET SCIENCE IS IT ?

April 21, 2009 Tony Paley-Smith Comments 0 Comment

Published along with this entry are some interesting photos I took recently of the signs banning BBQ’s on Clapham Common. Lambeth Council don’t seem to have any problem with the duty of care and maintaining of public order in their parks.

The question then is why is it so difficult for our Council and Councillors to see the obvious ? The most obvious answer to that is that they are no longer really in charge of major decisions in NW Leeds. This function has been taken over by the Universities and they have long had greedy eyes on the Moor.

The BBQ’s are just one of a number of ‘attacks’ on the Moor as Councillor Bernard Atha describes it. There is the Multi Use Games Pitch part of a dodgy transfer deal over the old Grammar School site, and the new University Car Park which is suddenly so very necessary. Although one might find it difficult to ascribe direct motives to the recent road widening issue you can be sure it wouldn’t be a proposal if the Universities disagreed with it.

There is no doubt in my mind that the Universities are trying to take over the Moor and these BBQ’s are the first significant step in that direction. That is why it has to be stopped.

APRIL ON THE MOOR

April 21, 2009 Bill Comments 0 Comment

At an INWAC meeting last Summer, after I complained about the anti-social behaviour being allowed to take place on the Moor, Councillor Matthews (Lib Dem, Headingley) claimed that the reports of anti-social behaviour were exaggerated and that if some people had their way they’d stop everyone having fun. I took a stroll across the Moor this morning and was greeted by the site of a bed settee in the middle of the most attractive part of the park. Councillor Matthews would probably regard this as a harmless prank and just people having fun. When our councillors take this attitude to anti-social behaviour, is it any wonder that the police refuse to take these matters seriously and act against the perpetrators. Also this morning, there was litter strewn everywhere and burnt grass from barbeques – all the result of people just “having fun”. And in the photo below, taken yesterday afternoon, you can see two bikers “having fun”.

CURBING AN EXCESS OF DEMOCRACY

April 16, 2009 Ian Harker Comments 0 Comment

The evils we experience flow from the excess of democracy.

The people do not want virtue, but are dupes of pretended patriots.

– Elbridge Gerry

Local councillor John Illingworth has compared the current consultation on a barbeque area on Woodhouse Moor with similar exercises undertaken to produce a “gerrymandered” result.

Elbridge Gerry (1744 – 1814) was a signatory to the Declaration of Independence, as well as to the first constitution of the United States of America.

During the years of America’s first constitution, he argued passionately for a stronger government with the power to levy taxes, raise a standing army, enforce law and order, and subdue Native American Indians, whose rebelliousness was devaluing the price of land in the not-yet-quite won Wild West.

So ardent was his support for a new constitution and a powerful single government (as well as for a central bank of the United States) that in 1813 he became America’s fifth vice president. His president, James Madison, was the primary architect of the new constitution.

As governor of Massachusetts, Gerry was infamous for re-drawing electoral boundaries to keep him in office and preserve the power of his party. A caricaturist at the Boston Sentinel, looking at a map of the carefully re-drawn districts, saw in its outskirts the shape of a salamander, sketched it accordingly, and showed it to the editor.

“Better say gerrymander,” was the editor’s reply; and the name stuck.

Gerry was also the first vice president not to run for the presidency; not due to any lack of ambition on his part, but because he died before he got the chance in 1814.

Certainly gerrymandering was not new in the first days of the American Republic; and the spirit of Elbridge Gerry is alive and well in Hyde Park and Woodhouse.

[ Part of this article is taken from the Millennium Edition of Brewer’s Dictionary of Phrase and Fable. ]

Where every night can be Bonfire Night

March 21, 2009 Bill Comments 0 Comment

When I got home last night from the barbeque consultation, there was an email from one of the Friends informing me there was a bonfire on the Moor. I went up there and found a large group of people gathered round a blazing fire.
Some of the people gathered around the fire weren’t too pleased that I was taking a photograph. One came up to me and pointing to my camera asked “Are you going to use this as evidence?”. I wish. But this is Hyde Park and Woodhouse 2009 where it seems that the only crime left is murder. I am right aren’t I – murder is still a crime here? On my way home, I flagged down a passing police van and told them about the barbeque. They said they’d look into it. The next morning I found that not only had the barbeque-ers burnt the grass, they’d also torn off the seat from one of the park benches.

We’ve precious few park benches as at is. When you think about it, the lack of park benches means that older people are being discriminated against. If there’s nowhere for them to sit how can they properly enjoy the park ?

The morning after

March 19, 2009 Bill Comments 1 comment

Woodhouse Moor was packed with people yesterday afternoon enjoying the glorious sunshine. Unfortunately, many of them never bothered to take their litter home with them, which is why the park looked such a mess this morning.
Leeds employs people known as “Civil Enforcement Officers” to ensure that the city is kept neat and tidy. They have the power to issue on the spot £75 fixed penalty notices to anyone dropping litter. A friend of mine was fined a couple of years ago by one of these people for dropping a cigarette butt in the city centre. And there’s the problem. These enforcement officers don’t appear to operate in Hyde Park and Woodhouse ward. If they do, I’ve never seen one. Why is it that the rules that apply to other parts of the city don’t apply here ?
There were five barbeques burning yesterday afternoon, and this morning I took this photo showing the damage caused by one of them.

I find it amazing that these dangerous contraptions are freely available in supermarkets and corner shops. There’s no age limit restricting their sale. Last year I heard at work that someone’s child had stood on one. She lost all sensation in the sole of her foot because of nerve damage.