By Leeds Central & Headingley MP Alex Sobel
I am honoured to be asked to write this column as the new MP for Kirkstall, having been an MP since 2017 representing the neighbouring communities in Headingley and Weetwood, and gaining Kirkstall in the boundary changes. I would like to thank West Leeds Dispatch for the opportunity to share my thoughts with you.
We have endured 14 years of cuts under the Governments in power from 2010 to 2024. For Leeds City Council this has been immensely damaging and challenging. In 2010 for every pound of council taxpayer funding the central Government provided £4, but now it is just £1 of our money to £1 from the Government.
For Leeds this has meant a loss of about £2.6 billion in funding from central Government since 2010. It is difficult to comprehend the difference between millions and billions of council funding losses as they are such large figures. It is much easier to understand the volume of cuts if you transfer it to minutes. 2.6 million minutes is just 4.94 years. 2.6 billion minutes is 4,943 years.
Even with cuts from central Government now stopping and hopes for more funding in future, recouping all the lost spending which Leeds suffered will take an exceptionally long time (if at all).
However, Leeds council have in so many ways led the country on saving services. For instance Leeds still has 56 children’s centre providing services to families and 15 council-run nurseries looking after early years. No other council can get into double figures!
One of the effects of austerity has been communities coming together and carrying on running services or developing new assets, sometimes in a flexible and innovative way. We have excellent examples locally like Bramley Baths, LILAC Co-housing and Kirkstall Valley Farm.
The council is faced once again with an almost impossible set of decisions and there is a consultation out regarding the future of Abbey House Museum. (The consultation runs until tomorrow, Thursday 23 January and can be found here – Editor).
I have recognised the huge affection that exists for Abbey House, especially by those who went there as children or, like me, took my own children.
This is the moment to come together and consider the future of such a valuable asset in a prominent place in our community.
It’s time to consider whether through supporting the museum by increasing visitor numbers, working with the council to find new activities to take place there, utilise unused space, fundraise to upgrade the exhibition, or even eventually a Community Asset Transfer, we can as a community rally round Abbey House and help create a brighter future for it.
If we can turn the feelings expressed when the consultation was announced into a cohesive force to see an Abbey House for the 21st century I am sure we will come up with the ideas, energy and innovation which have imbued council facilities like Bramley Baths, Kirkstall Farm and HEART in Headingley with new life.
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What’s the point voting Labour? I notice Alex just blames the last lot then tells us that Team Red are going to implemenent more Austerity via cutting all public departments by 5%. Which works out at tens of billions of cuts to community services.
Same austerity, different Roaette.
At least Tories are honest about it instead of being duplicipus, lying for the last 15 years of oppositipn and during the General Election that they had a plan to save Yorkshire & the UK’s economy. Instead we see the same kind of brutality from team red as we saw with team blue.
What’s the point voting Labour? I notice Alex just blames the last lot then tells us that Team Red are going to implemenent more Austerity via cutting all public departments by 5%. Which works out at tens of billions of cuts to community services.
Same austerity, different Red Rosette.
At least Tories are honest about it instead of being duplicipus, lying for the last 15 years of oppositipn and during the General Election that they had a plan to save Yorkshire & the UK’s economy. Instead we see the same kind of brutality from team red as we saw with team blue.
There are a number of problems with the MP for Kirkstall’s response to the proposed closure of the museum. For me, the first is that he be on the side of his constituents and I think most people would agree that closing any local amenity is a bad idea. Secondly, unfortunately, Mr Sobell seems to have very little grasp of how museums and heritage organisations function, and does seem to be engaging with the legal and ethical responsibilities that the council has to it’s collection. Thirdly, Mr Sobell seems to be under the impression that there is a magic wand for community asset transfer, and indeed that community asset transfer is suitable solution, and indeed that it comes free-of-charge. In 2001, when the museum opened after refurbishment, it was funded by a £1.5 million lottery grant, and closing museums is just, if not more expensive, than reopening them, neither will the NLHF be able to fund the bill! So there will be huge costs associated with closing the museum, ones which LCC would have to cover pre-supposed-transfer. To my mind, this whole scheme appears to be a false economy. Fourthly, Abbey House is the only museum in Leeds to have been founded and built up by a woman – Violet Crowther – and to my mind, even proposing it’s closure is an attack on women’s achievements in the city, and an anti-feminist act.
Bearing all this in mind, the costs of closure and potential transfer in particular, the proposal seems to be an ill-thought, knee jerk, anti-Leeds proposal. I’d encourage Mr Sobell to reconsider his position and to remember that access to knowledge is a human right, and museums like Abbey House, are vital for ensuring that.