Yorkshire Life Aquatic is inviting Bramley residents to join them for a walk and talk to discover what’s afoot in Bramley.
The walk will include a wander through snickets, ginnels and cut-throughs, tales will be told, and organisers hope you’ll share your stories too.
You will hear about some of the local legends, and the acts of defiance that have united Bramley in the past and continue to do so today.
The walk will include refreshments in the park and a chance to see the community commissioned mural in Bramley park: ‘We are Bramley’.
The finished We Are Bramley mural in Bramley Park.
The event runs on Saturday 30th Aprilat 11.30am and 3pm. Start point is Broadleas Community Centre, Bramley.
To book your place email: lucy@yorkshirelifeaquatic.co.uk.
Yorkshire Life Aquatic is a social enterprise that uses creativity and performance to promote health, wellbeing and environmental causes.
The walks are designed specifically to explore the routes through Bramley ‘on foot’, and as such are not fully accessible. There is a way to join the walks at Trinity Church onward and also to hear stories being told on our heritage telephone.
Are you looking for something to do on the 14th August 2022, between 10am and 2pm?
Taking place in Pudsey Market, the very first annual Pudsey Food & Drink Festival will be gracing the stalls to offer you some amazingly tasty goodies to sample and buy.
Applications are now open for traders from the Pudsey area and beyond to take part in the event, and all application details can be found over on the new website: https://www.pudseyfoodanddrinkfestival.co.uk/
Alongside the traders taking part in the market, we’re also looking to run a Taste Trail to celebrate the fantastic businesses of Pudsey that already sell such amazing goodies.
As organisers, we just wanted to try something a bit different. We wanted something dedicated to local independent food providers and where people could come in and sample food and drink.
Armley Library has just celebrated its 120th birthday. It is the city’s first purpose-built Library which officially opened on 17 April 1902.
The now Armley Community Hub and Library, situated at the junction of Town Street and Branch Road, is one of a few remaining safe spaces people can come and interact without it costing them a penny.
The Grade II listed building was originally built based on the designs of Percy Robinson, of Leeds, and was sympathetically refurbished in 2020, retaining many of its original features including a glass dome ceiling and parquet flooring.
The hub has a range of free services where you can learn how to use the computer, free printing and story and rhyme time for under fives and their parent/carers every week on Thursday mornings and the High Rise Project, which has an open arts group on Tuesday.
Kate Midwood, Senior Librarian West Leeds, has been helping local residents capture their treasured memories over the last few weeks.
She had spoken to many local residents, including a mother who had been coming to the library for years and whose whole family – including her mother and siblings – visit the library.
The former Armley Library. Copyright Stephen Craven and licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence.
Kate recalled a visitor’s memory of when the library was split into two floors with adults section upstairs and children’s downstairs, with a separate entrance for kids. The visitor would visit to rent out beloved Enid Blyton books, of which only a couple could be stocked at any one time. She had a trick of hiding the newest book somewhere in the shelves, to come back and collect later.
Enid Blyton’s books are still one of the Leeds Libraries most borrowed books.
Another resident had a treasured childhood memory of running down hall road to the library and passing by the chippy for chips with scraps.
What struck Kate during gathering these stories was how diverse Armley is and how many generations of families had benefited from Armley Library since its opening in 1902.
Armley Library is rich in history and is known to have had the first female librarian in the city, Maud Mary Hummerston who worked there from 1910.
If you would like to learn more about its heritage you can go to the secret library blog, which gives you a brief history of all the libraries in Leeds.
You can access the Leodis digital archive where you can look though old images and leave your own memories.
Kate said there is always a warm welcome from library staff awaiting you at Armley.
Library visitors can write their own messages in the giant birthday card which is on display now. After the celebrations the birthday card will be kept and digitised and saved within central library catalogue as part of the Armley Library collection.
Any patient registered with Armley Medical Practice, who is due or who has missed a previous cervical cancer screening appointment, is being offered the opportunity to undertake their smear test at a special drop-in clinic.
Armley Medical Practice, 95 Town Street, will be hosting the drop-in clinic from 10am-1pm on Saturday May 7.
Registered patients wishing to book a pre-book a smear test appointment at the drop-in clinic are advised to contact the practice on 0113 467 7499. Also available on the day to anyone attending will be refreshments, and a variety of health and sexual health information.
Anyone with questions or concerns regarding the screening process, is asked to contact their local GP practice. Additional assistance can be provided regarding a screening appointment.
This can include a request for a female nurse or a friend or loved one being able to accompany you at the screening.
Strict Covid-19 safety measures also continue to be in place at GP practices across the city to keep patients safe.For more information about the measures in place to enable you to be safely screened as challenges continue to exist regarding Covid-19, visit the Cancer Wise Leeds – YouTubechannel.
One of the key aims of Cancer Wise Leeds is to help improve participation in the screening programmes for cervical cancer, and also bowel cancer and breast cancer.
The project is funded by Yorkshire Cancer Research, led by Leeds City Council and delivered in partnership with the Leeds Cancer Programme.
Supporting this aim over the three-year programme are six screening and awareness coordinators.
Working within Primary Care Networks in communities across the city, the co-ordinators are working with communities to better understand how the screening process could be improved to meet their needs.
Leeds-based Chloe Bezer will be performing at a festival with a difference in York next month.
Produced by Little Mighty Theatre Company in Armley, her performance is entitled ‘The Slow Songs Make Me Sad’ and will form part of the TakeOver Festival at the York Theatre Royal, in collaboration with York St John University.
The festival is running from the 9-14 May 2022 and is themed around the unspoken, combining local and personal stories with an exploration of the wider world through a compelling combination of theatre memory and art. More information can be found here.
Chloe first started writing a show ten years ago. It featured a clown, songs, and something about a grand piano.
But then she had children and life got in the way, so that show never quite made it through. Now she’s a decade older, Chloe has decided she is going to make her comeback and finish it off. A festival spokesperson said:
“This is her chance to make a mark. To deal with the Big Stuff. To leave an inheritance for when she’s gone.
“With a cheeky glint in its eye and a steely determination to talk about all the things you’re meant to keep quiet, The Slow Songs Make Me Sad blends together hilarious clowning, heartfelt storytelling and raucous cello songs.”
Little Mighty Theatre Company is based at Interplay Theatre, off Armley Ridge Road. It collaborates with other companies and individual makers who create new work driven by big ideas. All of its artist relationships are hand-picked.
A second meeting will look to help formally establish a ‘Friends of’ group to help improve and bring investment to Stanningley Park.
It’s hoped that a volunteer-led Friends of Stanningley Park group would see park users help promote, care for and improve the park and also attract additional funding.
WLD reported last month that more than 20 people attended a public meeting to relaunch the group, discuss ways to restore the park to its former glory and raise money to help fund improvements.
Another meeting regarding Stanningley Park will be held on Tuesday, 17 May from 5pm to 6pm at Stanningley Primary School to discuss formally setting up the group and the different roles within it.
Last meeting saw proposals for a potential £20m bid to the government’s ‘levelling up fund’ to regenerate Stanningley Park, Western Flatts Park in Wortley, Armley Park, Bramley Falls and Kirkstall discussed.
Attendees heard that council officers were working with local councillors and ‘Friends of’ groups to formulate the bid, which was likely to be submitted to the government soon. The bid would also include the regeneration of Armley Town Street.
Pudsey Business Centre, off Kent Road. Photo: Google
An application to sell alcohol at an indoor sports simulator, bar and games room in Pudsey has been approved by councillors.
Outside In Sports Simulator Ltd successfully applied to Leeds City Council for an alcohol licence at its base – which first opened in November and features a state-of-the-art golf simulator – at Unit 4 in Pudsey Business Centre, off Kent Road.
The application was for the sale of alcohol, indoor sporting events, performance of live music and performance of recorded music daily between 9am and 11pm.
There were two individual letters of objection, both of which raised concerns over public nuisance.
West Yorkshire Police had no objection, subject to conditions including CCTV, a ‘challenge 25’ age verification policy, a daily record register being maintained by door staff and the maintenance of an incident report register.
Councillors approved the application subject to conditions, including the licence applying to the internal area only, that alcohol would be supplied only on premises and that there could be extended opening times only on Christmas Eve from 9am-1am and New Year’s Eve from 9am–2am.
An application to store and distribute alcohol from this house in Queenswood Drive has been made. Photo: Google
A former delivery driver’s plans to ferry booze out to customers from his home in Kirkstall have been given the green light by Leeds City Council.
As previously reported by WLD, Josh Miller asked Leeds City Council for a licence to deliver alcohol directly to people’s front doors from his house in Queenswood Drive.
But neighbours, supported by Councillor John Illingworth (Lab, Kirkstall) had lobbied against the plans, amid fears over clinking bottles and slamming car doors keeping them awake at night.
Three councillors sitting on the council’s licensing sub committee agreed to approve the application and granted a premises licence with the additional condition that no car radio would be used, the side patio door to be used for dispatch from premises and the delivery vehicle should have a boot with automated soft-close mechanism.
The meeting heard more than 130 licences for alcohol home delivery services have been granted in Leeds since 2005, although the hearing was told only a minority of these businesses are run from residential addresses.
The council’s full decision – and background papers to the application – can be read here.
Application: Lieutuvate, in Branch Road. Photo: Google
Ongoing problems with street drinking in Armley have scuppered a local shopowner’s plans to sell alcohol.
Ruslanas Zirnikas, who runs Lietuvaite Shop on Branch Road, had asked Leeds City Council for a licence to sell alcohol between 10am and 8pm every day.
Mr Zirnikas had insisted he wouldn’t sell single cans in a bid to deter street drinkers, and would charge a minimum price of £7.96 for a four-pack. He also said he’d pause alcohol sales between 3pm and 4pm to mitigate the impact on children walking home from school, but that he needed the licence to make his business viable.
But a public hearing earlier this month saw public health officials, police and the district’s three local councillors object to the application, along with Rachel Reeves MP. The council’s licensing sub committee was told that Armley is one of the worst areas of the city for drink-related anti-social behaviour.
Armley town centre has a cumulative impact policy in place, which makes it difficult for new applicants to successfully apply for a licence to sell alcohol.
Councillors on the sub committee deliberated in private after the hearing and discussed how the application would fit into the community of Armley and people’s need to feel safe.
They looked at the application in relation to the licensing objectives and were of the view that the application failed on all four objectives and refused Mr Zirnikas’s application.
The council’s decision, which was published today, and all other background papers, can be read in full here.
Campaigners in Bramley have lots to celebrate. Photo: John Baron
Words: John Baron
Photos: Philip McConnell
A group of residents who stood up for a place to sit down at Bramley Shopping Centre have celebrated the community spirit which led to their success.
For more than six months, members of the A Place to Sit campaign braved all weathers to hold weekly sit-down protests after centre managers LCP Properties removed all 22 benches without consultation.
PHOTO: Philip McConnell
Earlier this year, 13 of the 22 benches were returned after campaigners highlighted that LCP’s actions had contravened a previous planning application.
The community celebration on Saturday was the culmination of a week which saw the campaign’s good-natured protests and achievements nominated for a national Sheila McKechnie Foundation’s Best Community Campaignaward.
The campaign has unleashed a powerful community spirit which has continued even after the benches were reinstated.
PHOTO: Philip McConnell
A Place to Sit members now host a Saturday morning social over a coffee and biscuits at Trinity Church and enjoy a busy community Facebook page. For many it has helped to address the isolation and loneliness that some people felt during lockdowns.
Campaigner Christine Riley said Saturday’s celebration was about thanking everyone who had taken part. She told WLD:
“Everyone has been amazing; from shoppers who signed the petition, the community who joined our sit-in, to Leeds City Council and the local councillors, and the media who publicised our campaign. We couldn’t have done it without them.
“Our protests featured cake, songs, exercise classes and fancy dress and involved a group of people who had never met before but who have come together over this issue. It really has been about community spirit and shows what you can achieve if people come together to make a difference. It is all about people power!”
PHOTO: Philip McConnell
Campaigner Jane Dibb was at the celebration to thank everyone who had taken part in the campaign as she recently had need of the benches. She said:
“I was crossing the car park when I tripped up and broke my arm. A kind lady, who I’d like to thank, took me to a nearby bench and sat me down. I was shaken but grateful that it was there.
“The benches are important for people who need to sit down, people who aren’t good on their feet, have mobility issues – or people who just want to sit and chat. They should never have been removed.”
Campaigners say they now feel ready to tackle any other injustices facing their community.
PHOTO: Philip McConnell
The winner of the Sheila McKechnie Foundation Best Community Award is due to be announced at an online ceremony on Thursday, 19 May.
“You can sometimes feel in this world things aren’t winnable for Joe Bloggs, but it is worth pushing for better things in your community,” A Place to Sit’s Fran Graham added.
You can follow WLD‘s coverage of the campaign, which features more than 30 articles, here.
Outline plans to extend a residential street in Stanningley with five new houses have been approved in principle by Leeds City Council planners. – despite six objections.
Developers say the new houses would effectively extend Vickersdale Grove and would be sited between Arthur Street, Back Bank Terrace and the recent Pavilion Close development.
The proposal is to demolish all the existing outbuildings on the site and replace them with one row of five new terrace houses set on the northwest of plot.
The houses would be three storeys high. There would be parking for two cars for each property.
The plans are only at outline phase, which means applicant Mrs A Carey, of Tadcaster, was only seeking to establish the principle of development at this stage. Detailed designs would be subject to a full planning application in the future.
Six objections had highlighted concerns with the overlooking of existing properties, overshadowing and over-dominance and highway safety, among others.
A planning officer’s report approving the application said:
“The application seeks to establish if the principle of a residential development to the site is acceptable. It is considered that a residential development would be acceptable on this brownfield site, within an established residential location served by good transport links.”
The outline approval is subject to 22 planning conditions imposed by the council, including submitting details of offsite highway works to Haydn’s Terrace and the proposed internal access corridor.
The planning documents and reports can be read in full here.
A former beauty and tanning salon in Bramley Shopping Centre could become a tattoo parlour, if proposals are approved by Leeds City Council planners.
Sheet Anchor Investments 2 Ltd, which took over Bramley Shopping Centre last year, has applied to the council to change the use of the former The Loft beauty and tanning salon to tattoo parlour.
The first-floor unit has been empty since last October and a planning statement accompanying the application said:
“The applicants have recently purchased the shopping centre and are looking at ongoing investment in the centre in order to improve occupancy level.”
