Woodhouse Moor Online

On the 13th May 2023, an article appeared in the Guardian written by West Yorkshire’s mayor Tracey Brabin. In it, she said there was a need for women to “feel safe” in parks, and that this would be helped by better lighting.

On the 21st May 2023, Guardian columnist Eva Wiseman, responded with an article of her own saying that it wasn’t enough for women to “feel safe” in parks; they should actually “be safe.”

Now, because of Tracy Brabin’s support for lighting in parks, the powers that be are proposing lighting the paths across Woodhouse Moor, the oldest park in Leeds.

Whilst it’s true that a lit path would give the appearance of safety, in 1992 a deputation of women students asked the council not to proceed with a similar proposal because of the danger to pedestrians it would cause. They said:

“Having a lighted path across the middle of the Moor will encourage pedestrian use. Lighting the path will give the impression that it is safe to cross the Moor at night, whereas in fact the opposite will occur. Crossing Woodhouse Moor at night will become more dangerous. A lit path will create a false sense of security.”

The reason the students said that the Moor would become more dangerous, is that lighting the paths makes it easier for ne-er-do-wells to spot people and then drag them away from the lit path and into the shadows. This was what the Yorkshire Ripper did to student Jacqueline Hill as she walked up Alma Road beside the Arndale Centre in 1980.

In a blog post I wrote on the 22nd November 2011 following a meeting at the Civic Hall about an attempt by students to light the paths across the Moor, I noted the following about what our local police inspector Ian O’Brien said:

“The inspector said that the view of the police is that lighting the paths on the Moor would lead to an increase in the number of attacks that take place on the Moor. He said the increase would happen because lighting would attract extra foot traffic at night across the park, and would make those crossing the park more visible to would-be attackers. He said that his advice is for people to walk around the park at night, and not across it.”

And here’s what I wrote about what the operations manager at Parks and Countryside Kris Nenadic said on the subject at a meeting of the Hyde Park and Woodhouse Forum later that same evening:

“Kris Nenadic spoke about the problems involved with any scheme to light the Moor. He said that to be effective the lighting would have to cover the entire park and not just the paths. He added that they’re no longer able to suspend electric cable because of cable thefts, and so they’d have to lay the cable in trenches, and with all of the paths being tree-lined, this would cause substantial damage to the roots of half the trees on the park. He said they’d also have to cut back the branches of the trees to enable the lights to shine on the paths, and to enable CCTV to have access to the paths. He added that CCTV would be ineffective against hooded attackers as the hoods would prevent the attackers being identified. Mr Nenadic said that Parks and Countryside believe that lighting would lead to an increase in the number of attacks for the reasons already given.”

If the Moor were to be lit, it would no longer be a dark park. Amateur astronomers would stop going there to study the moon, stars, planets, and constellations. Page 27 of the Headingley Hill, Hyde Park and Woodhouse Moor Conservation Area Appraisal states that the character of the Moor as a dark park should be preserved.

Lighting the paths would upset the bio-rhythms of fauna that live on and pass over the park. It would also have a negative effect on the park’s flora.

Locals debated the lighting issue in October 2006 at Woodhouse Community Centre. At the start of the debate, several people said that lighting would make the park safer. Then during the debate, the dangers of lighting the paths were pointed out. When there was a show of hands at the end of the debate, no one wanted lighting on the Moor.

Leeds University is promoting these proposals. It wants to make the park safer for its students – an admirable aim. But some things can’t be made any safer. Recognising this is part of growing up. The paths across the Moor are always going to be dangerous at night. If people want to stay safe, they should avoid crossing the park after dark.

To the man in the street, Commonplace is an easy to use consultation platform which gives some people the voice they never had. The reason these people were voiceless is that they were hard to reach by conventional means. But now, thanks to Commonplace, many are engaged and useful members of Commonplace’s consultation community.

To developers and local authorities, Commonplace states that it provides a positive consultation response where previously there was “vocal opposition.” The company claims to get a 65% positive response rate in consultations it’s involved with. This is achieved by targeting social media ads at groups likely to support proposals, and by getting people who respond to these ads to join its “Community Panel,” which currently numbers over 200,000 people. Local authorities which employ Commonplace have access to the Community Panel, and consult local members about whatever they propose doing. They do this even if the majority of those consulted are unaffected by the proposals.

The council has responded to the points we made in our deputation. Their response can be found here.

Unfortunately, I can’t see that they’ve answered any of the points I made.

I’ve made eight Freedom of Information requests to Leeds City Council. All relate to the recent consultation advocating cycle lanes and infrastructure changes along the A660. The council answered the first three. One of these responses provided me with a report which showed that in late 2020, the council renewed a contract with Commonplace instead of putting it out to tender, as required by competition law. The report claimed that if the contract was put out to tender, then Commonplace risked losing it, and the council would then lose all the data obtained via the Commonplace platform, as the report wrongly claimed that Commonplace owned all the data. Recently though, the council has admitted that what it said in the report was wrong. It’s the council which owns all the data. Could it be because of the embarrassment caused by this episode, that the council has refused to answer my remaining five Freedom of Information requests, claiming them to be vexatious? Who knows.

Woodhouse Moor is the most intensively used park in Leeds: on a hot term time day there can be over 5,000 people on Woodhouse Moor, there is the hugely successful Park Run every weekend, skate boarders and BMX riders come from all over Leeds and the surrounding area to use the skate park. There are no public toilets. This results in a great deal of public urination and defecation on Woodhouse Moor.

Coffee on the Crescent comes under immense pressure from people wanting to use their toilets – without making any purchase.

The good news is that Councillor Kayleigh Brooks has identified the capital funding for the refurbishment of the Woodhouse Moor WC block – which is sited in the Hyde Park Corner car park. She is now searching for a source of revenue to fund the costs of the daily cleans and the general upkeep.

According to Commonplace, their “agree” facility is similar to Facebook’s “like.” But on Facebook, you can also “dislike.” Not so with Commonplace. On Commonplace, there may be an “agree” button, but there’s no “disagree” button. If you disagree with something someone’s said, they expect you to set out your reasons.

It’s interesting to note that with some commonplace consultations, you get hundreds of comments, and very few “agreements,” but with others, you get hundreds of “agreements” and very few comments. No explanation is given for this phenomenon.

1. From January 2020 until May 2021, Peter Mason was employed by Commonplace. For much of that time, he was an Executive Board councillor with Ealing Council. Since May 2021, he’s been the leader of Ealing Council.
2. Also employed by Commonplace since 2020, is John Howard. At the same time Mr Howard has fulfilled the role of Executive Board councillor at Redbridge Council in London, which he still does.
3. Until May 2022, Rosa Bolger was a Witney town councillor and a West Oxfordshire district councillor. At the same time Ms Bolger was employed by Commonplace.
4. Neil Walshaw was a councillor for Headingley ward in Leeds. During his tenure as a councillor, there was at least one Commonplace consultation which affected his ward, and over forty Commonplace consultations which affected Leeds. Councillor Walshaw resigned from the council on the 13th January 2023 and joined Commonplace. His resignation occurred shortly before the latest Commonplace consultation began about a scheme which would affect his former ward.

A third of local authorities use a company called “Commonplace” to provide a platform for their consultations. ¹ Many of these consultations involve cycle lanes. During these consultations, Commonplace use social media to geo-target interest groups, like cyclists. ^{2 3} The reason local authorities like cycle lanes, is that government money is available for them.

References

David Spereall, the Local Democracy Reporter at the Yorkshire evening Post, ended his article called “Woodhouse campaigners fight against Leeds council’s plans to install cycle lanes on A660,” about today’s deputation with the following:

“Labour’s committed to narrowing the gap. But these proposals would widen it.

“The council would be sacrificing a known, existing benefit for local people, for an as yet unquantified benefit for outsiders.”

Stephen Sheard at Look North wrote an article about the deputation for the Look North website entitled, “Leeds traffic plan: Park users angry over road revamp.” Amongst other things, Mr Sheard reported that Connecting Leeds want to encroach on the Moor, but not on narrower roads at either end of the park.

There’s also a short section of video about the proposed bike lines that appeared on Look North. And here’s the reaction on Twitter to the Look North broadcast from some members of the cycling community.

Finally, the issue was also covered on the lunchtime edition of the news on Radio Leeds. Here’s the relevant section read by Sarah Wakefield.

Earlier today, Friends of Woodhouse Moor went as a deputation to a meeting of the full council to protest against proposals for cycle lanes and other infrastructure changes which would negatively affect Woodhouse Moor. The deputation also complained to the council about the biased nature of its consultation exercise. Here is the speech they gave:

“Connecting Leeds want cycle lanes and infrastructure changes along the A660. “Commonplace,” the company providing their platform, has won awards for their high response rate here. They attribute this to repeatedly consulting the same people. As well as being questionable under data protection laws, this is “selection bias.” As is Connecting Leeds having eight meetings with cyclists before the 2018 A660 cycle lane consultation.

“You can complete this consultation without answering open questions. But such consultations are untrustworthy. Commonplace state consultations should have open and closed questions. This matters especially if participants receive incentives. People might be responding to the remuneration, not because they care about the issues. This consultation received over 420 responses in the first 24 hours, an unusually high number.

“The consultation is long and cognitively demanding. It contains lots of information, not always presented clearly. Section 1, grid A, lists 15 bullet points. Before you can answer the questions, you must read the bullet points carefully and then match them with the plans. For the multiple choice questions, you must choose all that apply from 21 options. You have to do this 12 times! This requires a lot of time and sustained mental effort to do properly. It should take at least 25 minutes to complete the consultation. We should be told how long each respondent took as Connecting Leeds will know.

“Commonplace state consultations should avoid biased language. But this Connecting Leeds consultation is full of it.

“They claim they want to make “better use” of space in front of the Arndale Centre. Who would object to something being made better use of?

“When someone drives down a side road, it’s “rat running.” But when they direct drivers down side roads, it’s “re-routing.”

“They claim their changes would reduce accidents. But they don’t tell us their cause or alcohol’s contribution. A council web page which no longer exists stated that the majority involved alcohol.

“By stating the changes would reduce accidents, they get around the obstacle of conservation area status, which makes changes difficult to achieve.

“They want cycle lanes behind bus stops, but don’t mention the dangers, or that Leeds is committed to the Hierarchy of Road Users, with pedestrians at the top.

“They want to turn a pavement across the Moor into a shared cycle lane but don’t mention they’re dangerous.

“They want to encroach on the Moor, but not on narrower roads at either end of the park. We’re not told that this would enable traffic stacking across the Moor, allowing it to flow freely on the narrower roads. Because of slow or static traffic, resultant air pollution and lost green space, the park would become a less attractive destination for locals and students. A park should be a destination, not a transport hub. Locals who don’t own green space would be especially affected

“Respondents are asked plainly how they feel about a “narrower carriageway,” but obliquely how they feel about “re-landscaped public space,” “overgrown shrubs to be removed” and “11 trees removed and replaced.” Who could possibly object to “re-landscaping?” Why is it necessary to state that shrubs are “overgrown?” Instead, people should be asked how they feel about “green space being take away” or “paved green space” or “removing trees.” Presumably people aren’t asked because Connecting Leeds know that nobody likes green space being taken away or ruined.

“”Improved landscaping” comes at the expense of almost a metre of grass verge at the Moor’s edge. And roadway would replace green space at Hyde Park Corner. But we’re not informed about either proposal. The consultation should ask people “how do you feel” about trade-offs directly and unambiguously.

“This use of biased language and the selective presentation of facts is called “response bias.”

“Cycle lanes are socially desirable. But so is preserving green space. Is this why they don’t mention wanting to remove grass verge, thus endangering adjacent trees, or that there’s already little green space in Hyde Park and Woodhouse compared to Weetwood and West Park, where most cyclists originate?

“Connecting Leeds knows whether respondents are local or cycle through the area. So there should be four sets of responses – locals who cycle, those who don’t, non-locals who cycle, and those who don’t. These groups may have sharply differing opinions. We should know how each answered the questions.

“Labour’s committed to narrowing the gap. But these proposals would widen it. The council would be sacrificing a known, existing benefit for local people, for an as yet unquantified benefit for outsiders.

“Local people rejected an almost identical scheme in 2018. Are we to be consulted ad infinitum until we give the desired response?”

You can watch a video of the deputation here. If you watch it to the end, you’ll see that Councillor Asghar Khan was using his mobile phone. Thankfully, this behaviour wasn’t typical.