Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall and Adam Smith at Armley Junk-tion last year.
The man behind a project to feed people from food destined for waste is to stand down due to mental health issues.
Adam Smith, who set up the country’s first pay as you feel cafe in Armley – Armley Junktion – made an emotional video explaining his decision to leave the project after six years.
Mr Smith said his work with The Real Junk Food Project had come at a cost to him and his family, and that his mental health had suffered. He added:
“The power of change is within us all. A kid from Beeston, who was thrown out of school, sectioned to High Royds hospital, ended up in care and later in prison, suffered substance abuse, decided to step forward and speak out about the injustices of this world and tried to do something about it.
“That kid could have been anyone. It could be you. Nothing is stopping you. Always do the right thing.”
Mr Smith said he hoped to leave the company in a ‘ in a somewhat healthy financial position. ‘ His public resignation statement can be read in full here.
The former Armley Junktion building
The Project claims it has fed more than 12 million people, stopping 5,000 tons of food being wasted.
Fairfield Community Centre. Copyright Stephen Craven and licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence.
Youth projects in Bramley and support for female ex-offenders in Kirkstall are just some of the projects that are seeking funding at the next Inner West Community Committee, writes Keely Bannister.
Held on Wednesday 25th September from 6pm at Fairfield Community Centre in Bramley, members of the public are welcome to attend and join their local councillors as decisions are made which will directly affect the council wards of Armley, Bramley & Stanningley and Kirkstall wards.
The most important decisions on the agenda are around the spending of each ward’s wellbeing budget for community projects and youth activities.
As detailed in a report, projects seeking funding at this meeting are:
Broadlea Tea Time Club run by Barca Leeds, seeking £3,773
Continuation of tea time youth club provision seeking to reduce social isolation and raise aspirations in six-12 year olds living on the Broadlea estate, Bramley.
Bramley Youth Group run by Barca Leeds, seeking £1,100
Money to cover rent for another 12 months for the continuation of a youth group helping local youths to build a positive relationship with local youth workers through activities such as sport, arts and crafts, music and dance, cooking and team games.
Drugs: The Truth run by Drug Watch Foundation seeking £3,333.33 per ward, £10,000 total
Providing information packs and workshops to young people up to the age of 19 in schools and colleges educating them about the dangers, laws, health and social implications of drug and alcohol abuse with the aim of building self-esteem and mitigating issues such as anti-social behaviour and health problems.
One Stop Shop Project run by Grassroots enterprise for social inclusion and poverty relief, seeking £6,000
Aiming to make the Kirkstall community safer through supporting at least 30 female ex-offenders by giving them continued support such as counselling, skill building and training for employment.
Wythers Community Development – The ‘Greenhouse’ Project run by Voluntary Action Leeds, seeking £5,000
Funding for a development worker to remain in post for the rest of the financial year to help this pilot project which is aiming to improve community engagement and involvement and levels of community led social action onto a more sustainable.
Young people-led participative research / social action project run by Bramley Our Place seeking £4,850
This project aims to revisit youth work principles of young people’s right to participate in decision-making and create the form and function of their youth work experience through their own research and social action.
Since the last meeting in July, the following spending has been approved:
Armley In Bloom, Armley Action Team, £4,000
Bramley After School Hub Klub, Kidz Klub Leeds, £3,128.18
It is noted in the report that a request for £10,000 for traffic calming measures for Victoria Park, Armley will likely be forthcoming when discussions between officers and local residents are completed.
It is also proposed that a £500 contribution will be issued by each ward to support the purchase of a 12-month supply of sanitary products in community hubs to help end period poverty.
Other items on the agenda include updates on the climate emergency – with councillors being asked for possible streets to close for car free days and schools that may wish to be involved, as well as areas where there might be scope to increase biodiversity or educate the public about idling.
There will also be updates on what has been going on in each of the three council wards looking at areas such as health and wellbeing, safety, anti-social behaviour and environmental issues such as waste and littering.
You can view all the relevant documents associated with the meeting by following this link.
A mother of a young Armley boy who passed away aged five after a battle with Neuroblastoma is taking part in a canal walk on what would have been his 13th birthday, writes Keely Bannister.
Carly Hudson, aged 46, will be joined by 35 other ladies for the charity walk which starts at Saltaire and travels along the canal into Leeds to raise money for children’s cancer charity Candlelighters.
Thomas Hudson on his fifth birthday
Mrs Hudson said the walk takes place on Saturday 12th October:
“Along with 35 ladies I am walking along the canal from Saltaire into Leeds, which is exactly 13 miles. I’m doing it in memory of my son Thomas Daniel Mark Hudson, who sadly passed away aged five years old from Neuroblastoma.
“I am doing the memory walk because I wanted to do something on Thomas’s 13th birthday. So what better than walking with my friends and family all ladies in pink Candlelighters t-shirts raising money and raising awareness of children’s cancer?
“We will be stopping off for lunch, drinks and a toilet break at Rodley Nature Reserve, where we have a memorial bench, then off into Leeds to the finish.
“After that we will be going straight to The Commercial pub in Armley. The landlady and a few ladies from the pub who are joining us on the walk, for well-deserved drinks. There will be fundraising continuing in the pub with raffles. Everyone is welcome to join us.”
Thomas, who lived with his mum Carly and dad Steve Hudson, 48, in Upper Armley, suffered from the second most common solid tumour in childhood, with the cancer affecting almost 100 children a year in the UK.
Neuroblastoma can occur anywhere in the body, but it most often occurs in one of the adrenal glands, in the abdomen. Neuroblastoma has one of the lowest survival rates of all childhood cancers, with only 67% of patients surviving to five years.
An only child, Thomas attended nursery at Whingate Primary School and was supposed to start at the school proper in September 2011 but was too ill to take his place.
Mrs Hudson said:
“He used to love pretending he was Bob the Builder, then he moved on to Fireman Sam. He loved fire engines!
“Thomas had a year on treatment starting with chemotherapy, then surgery to remove the tumour in his tummy. He then had high dose chemotherapy and stem cell transplant before he went through radiotherapy and antibody treatment.
“At the beginning of January 2012, he relapsed after the cancer came back, so he had more chemotherapy, but he ended up in intensive care. We were told there was no more treatment available as the Cancer had spread so we took Thomas home.
“Candlelighters children’s cancer charity paid for us to go to their caravan at Primrose Valley for a week away but Thomas deteriorated during the week and we ended up in Martin House children’s hospice where Thomas passed away on 20th April 2012. All the time throughout our cancer journey Candlelighters supported us and still do now with different things.”
Established in 1976, Candlelighters is a charity formed and run by parents of children who have or have had cancer, ex-patients and the medical staff who treat them. Based in Yorkshire, Candlelighters provides essential services and support to children with cancer and their families.
So far, the walk has raised over £1,175 for Candlelighters, with Carly wishing to offer her thanks to everyone who has donated so far.
It’s more than 300 years since shrewd businesswoman Elizabeth Beecroft first hammered out a successful career at one of the world’s oldest smithies at Kirkstall Forge.
Elizabeth’s story will be celebrated in a new exhibition in Armley looking back at the city’s proud history of innovation.
Opening at Leeds Industrial Museum next month, Leeds to Innovation will rediscover the achievements of some of the scientists, engineers and inventors who helped put the city on the map.
Among the ingenious individuals the exhibition will highlight will be Elizabeth – known as Betty – who took over the running of the historic Kirkstall Forge with her husband George in 1778.
Details gleaned from her diary reveal how a local “hammer man” from Kirkstall Forge, who came to Betty and George’s farm to buy a roll of butter, first sparked her interest when he told her the forge was available to let.
Despite the workshop’s dilapidated condition, she eventually persuaded her reluctant husband to help her take it over and although the couple initially faced ridicule, Betty quickly proved the doubters wrong.
1960s Kirkstall Forge
With financial support from relative and investor John Butler, she took sole charge of the run down forge and set about bringing in new equipment and an astute new business model.
Selling finished products including buckets, shovels and screws saw profits skyrocket from £172 in 1780 to the handsome sum of £952 in 1784.
In her diary, Betty wrote:
“I took in large quantities of metal and scraps at Leeds besides taking care of my own business. Now we fully applied ourselves to our business my husband undertook the care of the farm and works and I undertook the care of the trade the books with the buying and selling also the Engagements of the Men.”
After six years of hard work, which saw extensive improvements to the forge, Betty decided to step down, leaving behind a successful business which went on to become a cornerstone of the early industrialisation of Leeds, supplying the iron used for boiler, engine and machine making.
John McGoldrick, Leeds Museums and Galleries’ curator of industrial history, said:
“From her diary and records of the age, it’s clear that Betty Beecroft was a remarkable person, whose keen mind for business and eye for an opportunity were in many ways ahead of their time.
“Her vision and determination also laid the foundation for centuries of production at the forge, which in turn played a crucial role in some of the city’s biggest industrial success stories.
“For hundreds of years, Leeds has been a crucible of ideas and experimentation and a home to innovators whose creations and endeavours changed the city and the world we know today in ways both big and small.
“By rediscovering some of their stories, we can learn more about how they came to be at the cutting edge of their fields, what inspired them and what drove them to succeed.”
Leeds to Innovation explores 300 years of the city’s great minds, looking at famous names like John Smeaton, the ‘Father of Civil Engineering’ and designer of the Eddystone Lighthouse, as well as less well-known figures like Dr Brian Boffey, whose experiment with hot gelatine created the popular sweet Jelly Tots.
Leeds to Innovation opens at Leeds Industrial Museum on Saturday, October 26.
September heralds the return of pupils to school, adolescents to college, and students to university. Aside from academic pursuits, it also heralds the return of monthly gardening sessions for Kirkstall In Bloom.
After ad hoc sessions throughout July and August, our volunteers will be back on Sunday 29th September 2019 as we gather to prepare our gardens for winter.
Meeting
at 10.30am at the Drink and Be Grateful Fountain Garden, volunteers do
not need to have gardening experience or bring tools as we will
demonstrate what we need to do and provide tools. We will also provide
warm drinks and cakes and biscuit. Please come and join us.
Kirkstall
in Bloom is a friendly, welcoming volunteering group, we value
enthusiasm over experience, and only wish for volunteers to contribute
as much time as they can.
Winter is a wonderful time in the garden. While spring and summer seem dominated by blooms and growth, winter is when foundations are made for the year ahead. We cut back our lavender and remove unwanted summer plants from the gardens.
In the beds at the Drink and
Be Grateful Fountain Garden and Kirkstall’s Cenotaph new plants will be
nestled among the established fauna.
The
Cenotaph is one of our most significant projects and it comes to the
fore in Winter. Working with Leeds City Council (who help keep the
bushes trimmed and neat), Kirkstall in Bloom freshen up the planters at
the Cenotaph in time for Remembrance Sunday.
An outline planning application has been submitted for the construction of 13 houses on the former New Western Social Club and sauna site on Eyres Avenue in Armley, writes Keely Bannister.
As this is for outline planning only – an initial approach to the local authority to establish the parameters of what would be acceptable on a particular site – details such as the number of bedrooms for each unit isn’t included.
A document submitted as part of the application which shows a “typical floor plan” has the accommodation over three floors, with an integrated garage, a wc and a kitchen/diner on the ground floor.
A lounge, a three-piece bathroom, a single and a double bedroom on the first floor; two double bedrooms on the second floor, one with a separate dressing room and a full on-suite bathroom.
These details would need to be agreed at a later date though, through a further – detailed – planning application.
One issue which the applicants Roxy Bingo Club (Sowerby Bridge) Ltd will have to keep in mind as they develop their plans is a notice from council officers that warns against heightened traffic noise their close proximity to Stanningley Road.
Aftermath of the Eyres Avenue blaze in 2016. Photo: Mark Stevenson
The site in question is currently vacant land after the buildings that previously occupied the site – including a bingo hall and the Steam Complex sauna – were demolished for safety reasons following a major blaze on the site three years ago.
An objector at Bramley Parkrun in 2019. Photo: Simon Cullingworth
Photo: Simon Cullingworth
Words: Keely Bannister, Simon Cullingworth & John Baron
A consultation which affects the development of Tong and Fulneck Valley closes at 5pm on Tuesday 24th September.
Opponents have been out encouraging people to submit objections across West Leeds this week, with a stall outside Pudsey Community Hub and at Bramley parkrun.
Bradford City Council say that the development – which would see a link road built to support around 2,500 homes and industrial units – would reduce congestion as well as helping to regenerate South Bradford.
Objectors to the scheme such as local Pudsey MP Stuart Andrew and the Conservative councillors in Pudsey and Calverley & Farsley wards, believe it could do irreparable damage to the greenbelt between Leeds and Bradford.
They also say it could have a far-reaching impact on West Leeds if the road expands to also include connectivity to Leeds Bradford Airport, as is suggested in a West Yorkshire Combined Authority report.
Pictured above: Catherine O’Leary-Steele getting signatures to protest against the development of Tong & Fulneck Valley in Bramley Park at Bramley parkrun on Saturday morning.
I have spent a lot of time over the years trying to figure this one out – and it was not until this week that I noticed someone had made what looks to be a spelling mistake, and for once it was not me, writes Mark Stevenson.
I say spelling mistake but I could just as easily be missing something.
If you walk down Bagley Lane from the direction of the Fleece Pub in Farsley you will come across some Victorian terraced houses.
The street name carved in stone on the first of these houses reads ‘SIR WELFRED’S TERRACE ERECTED 1883’.
But on the Ordnance Survey map of 1889, it reads ‘Sir Wilfred’s Terrace’ and on the 1911 census record it says ‘Bagley Lane / Sir Wilfred’s Terrace’. Does anyone know which is the correct spelling?
If you carry on walking down Bagley Lane at the junction of Oaklands Road you will see some more old terraced houses.
You will notice a kind of timeline as to when they were built.
In the space of around ten houses, there are three carved street name signs ranging from 1902-07. None of these names appear on the maps. #
But they do appear on the 1911 census. Rose Mount Villas, Rose Mount Terrace and Ada Terrace.
Leeds City Council has been awarded a grant worth £541,847 for use this financial year from the Government’s Pothole Action Fund – and several West Leeds roads have been identified for repair, writes Keely Bannister.
As the council already have a fund set aside for potholes that require quick attention, a decision – which is currently being consulted on – has been taken to focus this money on pothole prevention on roads that meet the following criteria:
have extensive pothole repairs which if left untreated will lead to further potholes or;
are starting to rut, crack and craze and will pothole in the near future or;
locations that have suffered extensive damage as a result of the severe weather or;
major junctions which cannot be treated with preventative treatments and have therefore suffered greater deterioration.
17 roads have been identified and are currently being consulted on with the following 5 located in West Leeds:
Street
Extent
Ward
Stanningley Road
Cockshot Lane to Henconner Lane
Armley
Bagley Lane, Rodley
At Junction of Chiltern Court
Calverley & Farsley
Bradford Road, Stanningley
At Junction of Viaduct Street
Calverley & Farsley
Tong Road
Junction of Silver Royd Hill
Farnley & Wortley
B6154 Waterloo Road
Mount Tabor Street Junction
Pudsey
This financial year’s funding of £541,847 is a significant reduction on the 2018/19 allocation of £4.5 million, meaning that every ward cannot have work done.
If agreed through the consultation process, the money will be spent on £483,791 works costs and £58,056 fees.
Martin Farrington, the Director of City Development, will make the final decision on the 27th September. There will then be a period until the 4th October where councillors can “call-in” the decision and have it looked at by the relevant scrutiny board. If this option of a call-in is not exercised, the decision becomes effective on the 5th October.
Leeds United themed art which was vandalised around Burley will officially be restored – after Leeds United commissioned the West Leeds artist dubbed the “Burley Banksy” to carry out the work, writes Keely Bannister.
The artist, real name Andy McVeigh, is well known for his creations which can be seen on electric and broadband boxes around the streets of Burley and Kirkstall.
Recently Mr McVeigh’s Leeds United themed art has been painted over ruining the artwork, with a group calling themselves Leeds Residents Against Graffiti emailing the Yorkshire Evening Postto claim credit.
Now, in conjunction with Virgin Media who own the boxes and Leeds City Council as well as Leeds United, Andy will be recreating his artwork.
“Andy is a talented artist and over the years his work in my ward of Kirkstall has become much loved by the local community.
“In Kirkstall and Burley his art brightened up previously graffiti blighted boxes and has actually deterred further graffiti.
“The community were shocked to see that his work around Elland Road was covered up, so we are really pleased that the Council, Leeds United and Virgin have come together to give him the opportunity to restore it.
“Leeds fans have shown fantastic support for Andy and his art and it will be great to see it on display again as we celebrate the club’s centenary this season.”
Leeds United Chief Executive, Angus Kinnear, added:
“The art displayed by Andy is important to Leeds United and the city. The designs depict some of the most impactful players and kits from our 100 year history and you can see from our supporters’ reaction to the recent damage caused to the cabinets and how much it means to us all.
“Now that all parties have formally agreed to commission Andy’s work, his art should be protected for everyone to enjoy.”
As previously reported in the Dispatch, Mr McVeigh and his son Danny have also been invited to watch Leeds United at Elland Road with tickets being provided to them for this Saturday’s Derby game.
