On the 21st August, the Yorkshire Evening Post published the following last minute plea from local community associations for the council to abandon its plan to create a barbeque area on Woodhouse Moor :
It is now over 5 months since Leeds City Council launched its plan to concrete part of Woodhouse Moor to create a barbeque area. This would install 40 large concrete blocks in the Moor at a cost of £20,000 and scrap the byelaw banning fires in a section of the park right next to the children’s playground and nearest people’s homes.
We are grateful to the YEP for its fair and balanced airing of the issues. However we now understand that the Council is about to announce its decision. We understand many YEP readers must wonder what all the fuss is about.
It’s very simple really. We love our park.
Woodhouse Moor, the city’s first public park, is a gift that one generation passes onto another. As the community most deprived of greenspace in Leeds we need a way to share this space with everyone. The Moor should be safe for dog walkers, joggers, picnickers, allotment holders, team sports, wildlife and young mums with a push-chair. It should not be an area where the selfish minority hold sway.
The scale of the vandalism we have witnessed both this summer and last is ruining the park for everyone. The litter, destroyed benches and picnic tables, bonfires, branch ripping, allotment raiding, drug taking, smashed glass, burned metal, noise, graffiti and tons and tons of dumped rubbish are not sustainable.
We have no confidence in the Council’s consultation exercise which has been a farce and fraud from the beginning.
We therefore ask the Council at the eleventh hour to safeguard this green treasure for all and not to appease vandalism with £20,000 of concrete and a turned blind eye.
As we now know, the community’s plea fell on deaf ears. I suppose it was too much to hope that the council would drop the plan now after going to the trouble of (1) excluding the community from the multi-agency meeting that gave rise to the plan, (2) changing the city’s byelaws to make barbeque areas possible, and (3) organising a biased consultation – all apparently so the plan could go ahead.
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.
BROCKWELL PARK – THE ORIGINAL LIB DEM DRINKING DEN
When Councillor Penny Ewens heard that the Lib Dems in Lambeth had a drinking den on Brockwell Park, she decided that she would like Hyde Park and Woodhouse to have one too. So, on the 4th April 2006, she announced that it would be necessary to establish a “drinking den” (to use her own words) in the ward for drinkers who would be displaced from Hanover and Woodhouse Squares as a result of the DPPO that was proposed for the two squares. At the same time, she mentioned that a drinking den had already been established in Lambeth. She didn’t say where it was proposed to locate the drinking den. However, a few days later, a local resident asked two PCSOs if they knew where the den was to be located. One of them replied “Woodhouse Moor, but the final decision is up to Penny”. Then, in a report presented to a meeting of the council’s Inner North West Area Committee on the 21st September 2006, the council’s area management team said :
Once the proposed DPPO is in place, the Moor may well attract street drinkers who have been displaced. The view of the Neighbourhood Policing Team is that the Moor is large enough for street drinkers to not cause a nuisance and regular patrols to the area would keep an eye on the situation.
At the same meeting, Inspector Richard Coldwell said he strongly supported the council’s plan to establish a drinking den on the Moor, and described a similar scheme in Brockwell Park in Lambeth where he said street alcoholics are encouraged to keep to a particular area of the park, screened from the rest of the park by bushes which they use as a toilet, and that having them in one place makes it easier for police and social workers to keep an eye on them – a “multi-agency success story”, he said.
We understand that a meeting took place on the Moor, and it was decided that the best location for the den would be in the corner of the park where Wellington’s statue is located. Residents wrote to the to the YEP to protest and emailed councillors with the result that the scheme appears to have been dropped – for the time being.
LAMBETH COUNCILLOR RUTH LING ON HOW LAMBETH DEALT WITH A SIMILAR PROBLEM ON CLAPHAM COMMON
Commenting on the decision by Lib Dem and Conservative councillors on Leeds City Council’s Exective Board to ignore the wishes of local residents and proceed with a scheme to create barbque areas on Woodhouse Moor, Lambeth councillor Ruth Ling explains how two years ago, Lambeth Council dealt with a similar problem on Clapham Common:
“This decision is a great shame, and very short-sighted. Barbecues do a great deal of harm to the park (or Moor) where they are lit, create a very unpleasant smoky atmosphere for other park users and invariably lead to bones and other food waste being left lying around, which attract rats.
“Although I grew up in Leeds (Ash Grove, Hyde Park), went to school in Headingley, and used to walk across Woodhouse Moor every day to Jacob Kramer Art College and later to my job at Leeds Playhouse, sadly I have been exiled in London for many years. For the past 15 years, I have been a councillor for Clapham Common, where we successfully banned barbecues a couple of years ago without any fuss. I have never received one complaint from anyone unhappy about the decision, nor have I ever heard from any resident of any incidence of the bye-laws being flouted (and we have some extremely active and vocal local amenity groups including the Clapham Society, Friends of Clapham Common and the Clapham Common Management Advisory Committee). Admittedly, we have park rangers to enforce the ban (though the Common is more than three times larger than Woodhouse Moor, at 88 hectares) but I think the real enforcement comes in the £500 fine, which is hefty enough to act as a deterrent.
“For the large Council estates facing onto and close by the Common, this lovely green space is their front garden, and it is always packed on sunny days. Yet people seem happy to take picnics with them, and to eat cold food — there is no need to eat hot food on a warm day! And I think the thousands of people who pack on to the Common on sunny days really appreciate not being smoked out by the few.
“I really hope that Leeds City Council reconsiders its decision and that the Moor is left barbecue-free for the greater enjoyment of the majority. But please sort out the litter problem! Every time I visit my old stamping grounds (as I will this weekend for Carnival), I am shocked at the mess on the Moor. Good luck.”
The leader of the Labour group is calling for Leeds City Council to take action against those who damage the park through their anti social behaviour. In a letter to the Yorkshire Evening Post, Councillor Wakefield says that the council’s proposal to legalise barbeques sends out the wrong message. The council is effectively saying to potential lawbreakers that Leeds City Council will reward them by changing the law to make their activities legal. Councillor Wakefield is calling for there to be strong leadership on the issue of barbeques, and for the existing byelaws to be enforced.
In a Yorkshire Evening Post editorial, the newspaper has said that the damage being caused by barbeques to the Moor cannot be tolerated any longer. The paper is calling for £500 fines to be imposed on people who have barbeques on the Moor in the same way that people in Lambeth are fined if they have a barbeque in one of the parks down there. Apparently, Lambeth no longer has a barbeque problem in its parks as a result of adopting this policy. The YEP editorial says that the Lambeth approach to the problem is supported by former Labour councillor Gerry Harper. In a separate article in the same edition of the newspaper, Mr Harper says that if it works in Lambeth, there’s no reason why it shouldn’t work here.
Bikers from all over the city gathered this evening on Woodhouse Moor to commemorate the loss of one of their number. An article that appeared in last night’s Yorkshire Evening Post invited people to attend and said there would be a barbeque. I was alerted to the event by one of the Friends who telephoned to say there was a massive fire on the Moor. By the time I got there, the fire had burnt itself out, and although all you could see were the smoking remains of a sofa, you could smell the fumes from it the moment your arrived at the park.
The end of the park where the skatepark is located was full of bikers, and there were bikes and litter scattered everywhere. Many of the bikers were drinking.
While all this was going on, two extremely noisy quad bikes drove at great speed up the nearby path that leads to the Victoria Memorial. The two PCSOs standing at the bus stop did nothing. This gathering is further evidence that our park is being used by people from all over the city for illegal events that involve anti-social behaviour. Because of the refusal by Leeds City Council and the police to enforce the byelaws and uphold the law generally on the Moor, our local park, which we pay for, has been handed over to yobs from all over the city.
In the face of Leeds City Council’s apparent determination to proceed with its proposal for barbeque areas on Woodhouse Moor, Member of Parliament for Leeds Central Hilary Benn today released for publication a letter he sent over two months ago to Leeds City Council’s Chief Executive setting out his reasons for opposing the scheme, and saying that that enforcement of the existing barbeque ban is the better option. Here is the text of Mr Benn’s letter.
“I am writing in response to the consultation I understand is taking place as to whether concrete blocks should be put in the grass to allow barbeques to be held on the Moor.
I think this would be a very bad idea and I do not support it. Having spent the best part of an hour having a look at the damage that barbequing and bigger fires have done to the grass, I can see the problem the proposal seeks to address, but I think the better solution would simply to say that public parks are not for barbeques.
I think there are a number of reasons why this would be the right approach. Firstly, the barbeques that are taking place currently have done damage to the grass and it is by no means certain that those responsible would use the blocks as opposed to carrying on with what they are doing at the moment. Secondly, there have been occasions – as you will be aware – when these have turned into large scale events with all night drinking, some vandalism, and large bonfires which put other users of the park off. There have even been a couple of examples where sound systems have been set up in the park and as well as burning to the grass a lot of broken glass and bottle tops have been found on the surface, along with rubbish being dumped.
It seems to me that in addition to not proceeding with this proposal, there is a question of enforcement of reasonable activity in the park and I would be very grateful if you could set out what the plan is for dealing with this”.
There have been a number of letters recently in the Yorkshire Evening Post pointing out the flawed nature of the council’s consultation exercise. On June the 15th, there was a letter from Christopher Todd. Then this Monday there was a letter from John Hepworth and Susan Bayliss. And in Tuesday’s paper Anne White and Jan Furniss had letters published . Finally in today’s paper, there was an article by reporter Suzanne McTaggart about Wednesday’s deputation to the full council which also criticised the consultation exercise.
Earlier today, Martin Staniforth led a deputation of local residents to a meeting of the full council to ask for the proposal to establish barbeque areas on Woodhouse Moor to be scrapped, and for the flawed consultation exercise to be abandoned. In addition to Martin, who is the chair of North Hyde Park Neighbourhood Association, the deputation included statistician Professor John Kent, and representatives of South Headingley Community Association, Marlborough Residents’ Association and Friends of Woodhouse Moor. Here’s is the speech that Martin gave to the council :
“Lord Mayor, Councillors, my name is Martin Staniforth and my colleagues are Sue Buckle, Richard Hellawell, Tony Green and Professor John Kent. I welcome the opportunity to speak to you today to oppose the Council’s unpopular, expensive and damaging plan to concrete over part of Woodhouse Moor, though I am sad that it is still necessary to do so. I am speaking on behalf of all the community groups in the Hyde Park and Woodhouse area. More importantly I am speaking on behalf of the hundreds of local people who have objected to this scheme at meetings and in writing, and the thousands who have been denied a voice because of the Council’s failure to deliver consultation packs to them.
Lord Mayor, I want to concentrate on three issues. First, the proposal itself. This would involve sinking 40 large concrete blocks into an open, grassy area of the Moor to allow for up to 80 barbecues to be lit at any one time. Local people have strongly opposed this plan both because of the impact it would have and because it is another sign of the Council’s lack of concern for Woodhouse Moor. What used to be an open space for all to enjoy is becoming an area where, on sunny weekends, many people feel uncomfortable and unsafe because of the drunkenness, vandalism and anti-social behaviour which goes on there, apparently unchecked. Local people don’t want to see money wasted on concrete blocks. They want it spent on improving the Moor, undoing the damage that has been done in recent years, and making it a welcoming, attractive and safe area for all.
Second, consultation. The Council claims to have sent 10,000 questionnaires to local households seeking their views on the proposal. However it’s very clear, from public meetings and other surveys, that many people who should have received questionnaires didn’t do so. But instead of investigating the complaints, Council officers have relied on assurances from the delivery company that they delivered to all households in the area, with one or two exceptions. Well, to quote Mandy Rice-Davies, they would say that, wouldn’t they! Officers also seem to believe that because some people in a street responded, everyone in that street must have received a questionnaire. However, as I’m sure you know, people delivering house-to-house often take short cuts and miss out houses or whole streets to get the job done quickly. Finally, apparently replies were received from only 155 of the 551 streets which should have received questionnaires.
Statisticians say it is highly improbable that replies would be concentrated in such a small number of streets if the forms had been properly delivered. My colleague Professor John Kent, Professor of Mathematics at Leeds University, would be pleased to answer any questions you may have about the statistical analysis of Parks and Countryside’s figures.
And now we have the truly bizarre situation that the Council’s Scrutiny Board has said the consultation was carried out properly while at the same time it has been extended to the end of July so that people who didn’t receive questionnaires can send in their comments by e-mail! Frankly this isn’t a consultation, it’s a shambles, a fiasco, and the investigation nothing more than a whitewash. It should be abandoned now and there should be an independent investigation into what went wrong.
Third, the role of local residents’ associations. We were excluded from the group which drew up this proposal. I use the word “excluded” deliberately because a Council officer told me that while associations had been invited to the first meeting “subsequent meetings of this forum evolved into a partnership of agency representatives and council officers providing a cohesive and constructive working group that are committed to and actively resolving the various issues on Woodhouse Moor”. Apparently local residents have nothing to contribute to resolving issues facing the Moor, despite our very real commitment to its long-term health. This is not the first time that proposals have been put forward for changes to the Moor without involving local people, and not the first time they have been strongly opposed by them. The exclusion of local residents from groups considering plans for the Moor is unacceptable, results in bad decision-making, and must be ended.
Lord Mayor, Woodhouse Moor is an historic park, dear to those who live near it and use it regularly. It is an asset that we hold in trust for future generations, and we should leave it in better condition than we find it. If the current proposal goes ahead, our legacy will be 40 concrete blocks and a degraded open space. We therefore call for the current plans for a barbecue area to be dropped, for the flawed consultation process to be abandoned and for local residents to be fully involved in any group developing plans for the Moor in future.”
