By John Baron
Campaigners have held a protest outside Leeds Civic Hall as councillors arrived for a meeting of full council this afternoon.
Job losses and a council tax rise are among measures which councillors hope will help Leeds City Council save £103.8m during 2025/26.
As part of its cuts, the council is aiming to close Stocks Hill Hub in Armley, which campaigners say provides a lifeline service for many people. Services would be moved to Horsforth.
Service users lobbied councillors as they entered the Civic Hall. Norman Forsyth said: “This relocation will make the service inaccessible for many as it’s so far from where many users live.Some of us have anxiety travelling such long distances.
“As a bus user living in Armley, you’d have to catch a 16/72 service into Leeds city centre, and then a 50A out to Horsforth. It’d take around an hour and a half just to get there.
“Attending Stocks Hill and the face to face service they provide, in an area of Leeds we can access, keeps us stable.
“Relocating this service will have a negative impact on our mental health. Some of us will end up seriously unwell.”
Other campaigners said Stocks Hill was a local lifeline for them and that travelling to Horsforth by public transport wasn’t practical.
Campaigners spoke to Armley councillors Andy Parnham (Lab) and Lou Cunningham, (Green) as they attended the full council meeting.
It’s understood a final decision on the future of Stocks Hill is due at a forthcoming meeting of senior councillors at the decision-making executive board.
Speaking at today’s full council meeting, council leader James Lewis (Lab) said that between 2010 and 2014 there had been a reduction of £2.7 billion in council funding from central Government. He spoke of the difficulty councils faced with balancing their books.
“This is the legacy we are dealing with,” Cllr Lewis added.
Conservative group leader Cllr Alan Lamb (Wetherby) acknowledged some of his party’s failings in national government but pointed to the financial crash of 2008 which had left many European economies as ‘sluggish’.
He said Leeds City Council had become “too big, too noisy and too bureaucratic”.
He also criticised the council’s ‘wasteful’ investment in Leeds City of Culture and cycle lanes.
Council tax will rise by 4.99 per cent as part of the savings plan. Some 1.99 per cent of the increase is a “social care precept”, a levy councils are allowed to include to help care for vulnerable people.
Extra central government funding meant the council avoided having to close Abbey House Museum in Kirkstall, a move which had been met with a public backlash. Cllr Lewis told full Council that work was already under way to look at measures to ensure the museum’s long-term sustainability.
The council proposed closing 30 bowling greens around the city, but then decided they would be maintained until the end of the 2025 summer season. A further consultation is planned on bowling green provision.
Plans to reduce funding for Neighbourhood Networks, which help elderly people live independently, by ten per cent would also not be needed.
Current plans include a review of 56 children’s centres around Leeds. In West Leeds this means children’s centres in Pudsey, Farsley, Swinnow and Bramley face an uncertain future. Centres currently run by schools could be brought under council control to save cash. No decisions have yet been made over closures or job losses.
A review of all the council’s ‘locality’ buildings in communities across Leeds will continue to be carried out.
Services under review also include children’s transport services, a possible reduction in the number of community committees and the council’s cultural investment programme. A final decision on the future of Pudsey Civic Hall is yet to be taken.
The council has warned compulsory redundancies may be needed to reduce staffing by the equivalent of more than 230 full-time posts.
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