A Calverley & Farsley councillor has renewed called for a ‘racetrack’ West Leeds road to have 24-hour monitoring through fixed speed cameras.
Cllr Peter Carlill (Lab, Calverley & Farsley) welcomed recent police action on A647 Bradford Road in Pudsey – but says the only permanent solution is to install permanent cameras.
Cllr Peter Carlill
He thanked Leeds West Neighbourhood Policing Team for working to tackle the various issues with speeding on Bradford Road, but added:
“There are drivers at excessive speeds on this route during the day, but more so at night when it effectively becomes a racetrack. I know they are working to solve this issue with a regular police presence and mobile van units throughout the day, but also with assistance from the specialist roads policing team at night.
“I’m clear the only real solution to this issue is having 24-hour monitoring through fixed speed cameras on this route – and in fact all the way down the A647. I will continue to work with councillors across West Leeds and the council to ensure the West Yorkshire Casualty Reduction Partnership can act to make the entire A647 safer for local residents.”
Work was due to start this week on a mobile speed camera layby off Ederoyd Road, Ederoyd and Ederoyd Grove.
Last month, the Dispatch reported how the installation of permanent speed cameras on the road – which has been branded a ‘race track’ by residents – had moved a step closer to reality.
Earlier this month police carried out speed checks on motorists between Thornbury Roundabout and Dawsons Corner.
An electric car charging point is set to be installed in the Charles Street Car Park in Farsley.
Leeds City Council will be carrying out the work, which means the car park will be closed for one Sunday during August, with a final date to be confirmed.
An electric charging point will be installed in the Charles Street car park, off Farsley Town Street.
Temporary traffic lights will be in place for two days across Farsley Town Street as an electricity cable is delivered across the highway, with the bulk of the works on the pathway
Electricity company Engie are scheduling works to take place during August once permissions have been confirmed from the Highways Department.
The charging point is being installed in the Charles Street car park because on-street would have resulted in the loss of parking places for traditional vehicles.
A Pudsey-based property specialist has supported two community initiatives in Farsley as part of their community initiative for 2020.
Linley & Simpson, who have a branch on Robin Lane, have committed to supporting and giving back to these areas by releasing a £30,000 pot for community groups, schools and sports clubs to apply for.
The Pudsey branch, based on Robin Lane, has donated £500 to Farsley Celtic Ladies football club to buy a new kit for this coming season, as well as balls, bibs and waterproof jackets.
Adrian Sparrow, who works at the club said:
“We are one or the largest ladies football clubs in West Yorkshire, we have three ladies teams playing 11 aside in local country leagues and now the north East regional league following promotion from last season. We are part of a wider club that has a further 16 teams from juniors at u6 to men’s teams. Farsley Celtic juniors have provided football in the community for forty years and we are glad to be a part of that.
“The ladies section costs over 5k per year to run and the ladies fund this mainly through the collection of subscriptions. We have ladies of all abilities ranging from ex national League to new to football players. We try to include as many people as we can.”
The branch has also linked up with Farsley in Bloom by donating £250 to fund a planter in Farsley village. The organisation is looking to fund four planters in total and is hoping to seek support from local businesses in the area.
All the groups will benefit from Linley & Simpson’s Give Back Scheme, where the business will donate £250 to the community group or school when someone lets or sells a property through them and is associated with that group or school.
If you are interested in applying for a grant, click here.
Have you ever seen little canisters, about two and a half inches long, discarded on the ground?
When I first joined Litter-Free Pudsey in 2016, we would only stumble across these canisters occasionally. I wondered what they were but never really looked into it.
Lately, we are not “stumbling” across them, they seem to be discarded on many streets and in our parks in Pudsey. We need to put a stop to it.
These are Nitrous Oxide canisters – and they are being inhaled as a drug. They are dangerous – but the dangers are often misunderstood and minimised.
The user inhales the gas, usually after pumping in to a balloon because it gives them more control of the gas and warms it up. This gas does not give a “high” as other substance abuse does, instead it causes a head rush or a “floating feeling” – it can cause laughter (hence the tag laughing gas) or dizziness, but it isn’t the same high as that of other common recreational drugs.
So what are the side effects? Well here is the science. Major concern has to be the immediate drop in vitamin B12 – I can hear you yawning already.
But immediate drops in vitamin B12 cause nerve damage, or even paralysis. High doses can cause life-threatening effects, including seizure, coma and sudden sniffing death syndrome – when the heart stops beating.
And in addition to all this, people have also been know to choke on vomit or experienced accidental injuries while under the influence.
Nitrous oxide is prevalent throughout our local area – the only way to avoid the risk is a change to legislation. It is already illegal to sell them for recreational highs. But as it is so cheap to buy, and as sales are not restricted if they are for purposes such as catering, then it is very difficult to prosecute. And cases have failed in court because of this legislative loophole.
Yeah, sure, we all know of that Aunt, Grandma and cousin’s husbands’ great-uncle who smoked all his life and lived until the rip old age of 120, and this isn’t about stopping all substance abuse it’s about educating our children to the effects of abuse. If this reaches just one person who thinks twice, then it is worth it.
Please sign and share the petition and let’s help get the legislation changed. And please, talk to your children about the risks of these seemingly harmless little canisters. (Even if you’ve already signed – share!)
Rodley Nature Reserve volunteers Phillip and Denise. Photo: Simon Cullingworth
Photographer Simon Cullingworth visited Rodley Nature Reserve today to capture some of the beautiful natural surroundings.
The Reserve re-opened following lockdown on 11 July. Opening times are currently 1pm to 5pm Wednesday and Saturday, although all hides are still closed due to social distancing rules with the Covid-19 pandemic.
The visitors’ centre and dipping ponds are also off-limits. It’s still worth a visit though, as there are still many things to see and do.
Bryan Machin (Executive Director of Finance and Resources, LCH), Dawn Hanwell (Chief Financial Officer, LYPFT) Thea Stein (Chief Executive, LCH) Sara Munro (Chief Executive, LYPFT)
A major milestone in the construction of the new mental health unit for young people has been marked at St Mary’s Hospital in Armley.
The new facility for child and adolescent mental health services (CAMHS) is expected to open in 2021.
The impressive steel frame has been completed and gives a sense of the scale of the new unit, which will have 22 bedrooms, activity rooms, educational facilities and communal areas both inside and out.
A group of NHS leaders, front line staff, a service user and Armley councillor Lou Cunningham were given a tour of the site by the construction company Interserve, followed by an opportunity to sign one of the building’s huge steel pillars.
Thea Stein, Chief Executive of Leeds Community Healthcare NHS Trust which provides the West Yorkshire CAMHS service, attended the steel signing event. She said:
“I was thrilled to sign the steel frame on behalf of all the people who have been involved in the development of this unit. It’s great to see the progress first hand and I’m excited for the day we can open.”
Children’s play areas and playgrounds in Leeds will begin to reopen from tomorrow (Thursday).
The reopening programme is being done gradually to ensure they meet the requirements set out in the government guidelines around cleaning and social distancing to allow them to reopen safely. There are more than 200 play areas and outdoor gyms across Leeds with over 2,000 pieces of equipment. It will therefore take time to reopen all of the play areas and playgrounds, and Leeds City Council would like to the public for their patience during this time.
The following parks will be reopened on Thursday 23 July:
The playground at the Arium
The playground and adventure playground at Lotherton Hall
The playground at Middleton Park
The two playgrounds at Roundhay Park along with outdoor gym equipment
The playground at Temple Newsam
Cllr Mohammed Rafique said:
“Some playgrounds and play areas will reopen in some communities later than others, because of the practical implications of national guidance in terms of the day-to-day management of each area and the subsequent additional pressures on our budgets. As a consequence of this the council will be writing to the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government requesting that the guidance is reviewed for those who manage a large number of municipal playgrounds that invariably have no site-based staff presence, over a wide geographic distribution.”
ORIGINAL POST 11am: Leeds City Council has claimed all of its 200-plus public play areas remain closed, and “should not be used”, writes Richard Beecham.
The authority had put out a statement last week claiming six of its children’s play areas would reopen, amid recent relaxing of the Covid-19 lockdown rules.
However, the council has since claimed the statement has been withdrawn, and that further checks and cleaning had to take place on outdoor gyms and playground facilities before they could once again be used.
Correspondence from Leeds City Council said: “Currently all of our playgrounds and outdoor gyms remain closed, and should not be used.
“Legal opinion is quite clear that to open our playgrounds without individual risk assessments and control measures regarding social distancing and an enhanced cleaning regime is not acceptable under the government guidance.”
The authority claimed it was ‘working hard’ to carry out the risk assessments to meet government guidelines but, as this included more that 2,000 pieces of equipment, it was not currently possible to open them safely.
It added: “We hope to be able to open some playgrounds shortly, but our focus has to be on the safety of children and families using them.”
The council had originally claimed that from July 16, it would begin to reopen sites including the playground at the Arium, two at Roundhay Park and the playground at Temple Newsam.
But, following the publishing of the new government guidance, the authority took the decision not to open the sites.
According to the new guidance, all owners of play areas and outdoor gyms need to carry out a COVID-19 risk assessment on each facility.
It added that users should be able to safely observe one metre-plus social distancing rules and, if possible, introduce a maximum number of users, or even a booking system. Regular cleaning should also take place on equipment, according to the guidance.
Earlier this week WLD reported on Leeds West MP Rachel Reeves calling for all playgrounds to be opened during the summer holidays.
Leeds Civic Hall. Photo: John Baron/westleedsdispatch.com
Councillors in Leeds will formally discuss an emergency budget for the first time at a meeting next week, writes Richard Beecham.
It follows weeks of warnings that Leeds City Council needed tens of millions of pounds from the Government to plug a funding gap caused by extra costs and losses caused by the Covid-19 pandemic.
A report set to go before the council’s Governance and Audit committee claims that the authority could have to make more than £90m of cuts over the coming months if no extra source of income is found.
What is this meeting about?
Members of the committee will discuss whether the council has the proper procedures in place to put together an emergency budget if needed.
The report states: “The Council will continue to remain a financial going concern and provide value for money services.
“The council’s external auditors are fully supportive of the measures being taken by the council to bring its finances back into balance and comply with statutory duties.”
It is not known exactly when such an emergency budget will be put together, but officers had previously claimed this could be put together around August and September this year.
What is the state of the council’s finances?
A report last month suggested the impact of Covid-19 resulted in a predicted overspend of £197.6m, or £193.5m when taking other savings into account.
So far the council has received £43.7m of government funding to go towards the costs of Covid. £2.6m of this was used to plug Covid-related costs faced back in March, which fell into the 2019/20 financial year.
The remaining £41.1m of the grant will be used to reduce the current year’s overspend to £156.5m.
Of this, the council is expected to see a hit to its collection fund – the amount of money it makes in council tax and business rates – of £60.9m, but the report claims the council ‘assumes’ this would impact next year (2021/22), leaving a funding gap of £95.6m for 2020/21.
How much does the council usually spend?
This varies from year to year but according to the latest budget, which was signed off in February, the authority had set a total revenue budget of £525.7m. The expected financial hit of Covid-19, even after government grants, recent savings and the delayed impact of the collection fund losses, still makes up 18 percent of the budget.
For context, that is the equivalent of the authority’s entire resources and housing budget.
What services are likely to be affected?
The council’s chief executive Tom Riordan hinted in June that culture and events may have to take a hit, as this was one of the few non-compulsory areas of council spending left to be cut.
It was also claimed that around 400 Leeds City Council jobs could be lost, although it was not made clear in which departments these could be.
Why do they need to balance their budget each year?
Unlike other branches of the public sector, such as the NHS, councils are required by law to balance their budgets each year, meaning any unexpected costs faced by local authorities have to be resolved before the end of the tax year.
What has the council said about this?
The authority has repeatedly pleaded with government for extra cash to plug the gap.
Speaking to a virtual press conference in June, council chief executive Tom Riordan said: “The issue now is stabilising council budgets across the country.
“I came into Leeds just after austerity had started in 2010, and was faced with huge reductions in our budget. That is the closest that we have been to this situation, but this is more severe than that, because it’s in-year, it’s a collapse in income and is in an unprecedented situation in terms of the country having to lock down.
“The potential implications are as severe as it gets because we have a statutory duty to balance our budget and to do it on March 31.
“We would have to take very draconian measures.”
What has the Government said?
An MHCLG spokesperson said in June: “We’re giving councils an unprecedented package of support, including £3.2bn emergency funding, to tackle the pressures they have told us they’re facing.
“Leeds City Council has received a total of over £43m of emergency funding to tackle the pressures they have told us they’re facing while their core spending power rose by more than £35m overall this financial year even before the additional funding was announced.
“We will continue to work closely with councils as they support their communities through this national emergency and we are working on a comprehensive plan to ensure councils’ financial sustainability over the coming year.”
The introduction of ‘orca wands’ to create a temporary pilot cycle lane down part of Kirkstall Road will help reduce the number of accidents involving cyclists, a council report has said.
Council officers say the scheme is inspired by similar measures in Barcelona, London and New York, which saw authorities trialling cycling improvement projects before a more substantial scheme is delivered.
In a report authorising £65,000 to be spent on the scheme, officers said a short section of segregated cycle lane on the inbound side of Kirkstall Road, between Woodside View and Weaver Street, has had 87 recorded injury collisions involving pedal cyclists over the past five years.
There were also 22 recorded injuries to pedestrians. Three of the accidents resulted in fatalities and 13 in serious injury.
The first section of temporary cycle lanes will run from Vesper Walk to the city centre and will see “wand orcas” (semi-permanent bollards that are bolted to the road) installed to physically separate the space for cyclists and traffic.
This scheme has been fast-tracked and will be the first of the arterial routes into the city where such measures will be installed.
The council report concludes:
“The current design proposes that light segregation will be introduced where unsegregated cycle lane is present. The cycle lane will be reviewed and converted from an advisory lane to a mandatory lane.
“This proposal will provide a safe environment that will encourage everyday cycling and allow Leeds City Council, where appropriate, to rapidly expand the cycle network, ensure the viability of more permanent schemes and identify potential issues before committing resources to extensive capital schemes.”
At the same time, £2million has been invested in the Weaver’s Yard project, which is opening up the centre of the mill, creating a magnificent performance area and 95 new car parking spaces.
An artist;s impression of Weaver’s Yard
John Gaunt, co-managing director of Edwin Woodhouse, the owners of Sunny Bank Mills, explained:
“Our latest letting to Kids Fitness Centre gives us special pleasure because Martin Davies, who runs this company, is a Farsley resident, who started off his business hot-desking at our mill.
“The business has now grown, so Martin has been able to expand into his own office at Sandsgate on site. This is a great example of how Sunny Bank has acted as an incubator for a local business and enabled it to grow and flourish. Martin’s move also underlines the existence of a real community here.
“We now have six really exciting projects in the pipeline, spanning leisure, retail and food. Interestingly, none of them are straight offices and they will really add to the mill and the local area as a destination to visit and work.
“This is so important as high streets try to recover from the damage inflicted by Covid-19. Regenerated mills like Sunny Bank, with a clear strategy to be mixed-use and a determined attitude towards investment, are playing a pivotal role in this process.
“We had to pause and plan for a few months during lockdown but we have now found a path forward which allows us to keep investing in Farsley at Sunny Bank Mills. At over £2m, the Weavers’ Yard project is our biggest single investment to date, and is set to complete at the end of October 2020.
“This will open up the centre of the Mill through demolishing some disused buildings, create 95 car parking spaces and a 5000+ sq ft flat outdoor performance space, the latter will allow us to be more flexible in welcoming events in a post-Covid-19 environment.“
Martin Davies of Kids Fitness Centre added:
“It’s been a rollercoaster of ups and downs for the business with the uncertainty of the past few months delaying moving into the new office space. We’re confident in our products and service so now its full steam ahead.
“The landlords have been very understanding with Covid-19 and delaying the office move until now. I’m happy that we’re going to be here for at least three years and hopefully many more after that.”
A group of Farsley cricketers will cycle 122 miles to raise money for Leeds Cancer Support.
Nine lads will cycle from Liverpool to Farsley Cricket Club along the Leeds Liverpool Canal, which is around 122 miles.
The cycle, which it’s hoped will take around 12 hours to complete, has been organised by Farsley’s Mathew Lumb. He said:
“Like many others in the world cancer has torn families apart. My family and close friends are no different. I always thought growing up it will never happen to my family or friends… how wrong I was.
“Life really is too short. So as I’m fit and healthy i want to raise some money to help go towards Leeds Cancer Support to show my support in the amazing job day in and day out people do for many loved ones.”
Farsley cricketers taking part in the challenge are Mathew Lumb, Chris Beech, Matthew Revis (Yorkshire CCC), Ryan Blackburn, Jamie Blackburn, James Hoyland, Richard Sutcliffe & Kesar Arshad.
Also joining the cycle is Jordan Lilley (Bradford Bulls) who is raising money for Alzheimer’s society in memory of his late grandfather.
