Leodis New News June 2005

White Cloth Hall
Early sellers of cloth in Leeds conducted their trade on the Leeds Bridge. When this became unsuitable the market moved to Briggate and, in time, to a purpose built market in Kirkgate.
The White Cloth Hall, a Grade 2 listed building, opened in 1711 and a leading conservationist has described it as the moist important listed building in the city. He's probably correct as the Hall, and its successors, was the cornerstone of Leeds's rapid economic growth.
Unfortunately, the building has suffered from many years of neglect. Many thousands of shoppers pass it every day and haven't a clue of its existence. It's behind the shops on Kirkgate although a little part of the roof is visible.
The planning department at the council has approved, in principle, a scheme to dismantle the building and then rebuild it as the centrepiece of a small shopping complex.
The historic nature of the building requires that government permission is granted before starting work. The matter has been referred to the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister - Commissar John Prescott.
Kevin Grady, director of Leeds Civic Trust, commented that the site was a medieval street and it was important the site was excavated by archaeologists after the hall was dismantled.
There is some growing concern that we are ignoring our past in pursuit of the future. The Leeds Civic Trust and the West Yorkshire Archaeology Advisory Service need to be vigilant.
Cloth was originally sold dyed or undyed. The undyed variety was referred to as "white".

Moravian Church
There is a small Moravian church in Morley that was built took just four years to build and was finished in 1751 at a cost of £347.
The church currently has a congregation of 30 that was concerned about the deterioration of the building, but no longer, as the Lottery Heritage Fund has given the church £79,000 in a renovation grant. The people are over the moon and will spend the money on the roof and walls.
The church was built by Protestant missionaries who came from what is now the Czech Republic - or was the last time I looked!
It's origins go back earlier than the 1750s as there was a general Love feast - a sharing of food and drink - held in a field near Great Gomersal in 1742.
The church gains from a package of grants from the Lottery Fund - as do several other churches in the region.

The Patient has a Recurring Problem
Here they come again!.. the management of Leeds Hospitals NHS Trust is warning that drastic financial cuts will have to be made this year to avoid a £14 million deficit at the end of this year. This year the proposed cuts will be applied to the Clinical Management Teams that will have to fill vacancies from existing staff although there is an appeals process in place.
The Trust management say that if the measures are imposed rigorously then the Trust will be able to achieve a financial balance.
Last year there were cutbacks in beds, nursing staff and theatres when the Trust plunged into debt. Much of the blame lies with the Government which awards pay rises to staff but then fails to supply the extra cash needed to fund those rises.

Further Education
Back in 2001 Leeds City Council was condemned for the manner in which it ran the local education services. So bad was the report that the Government insisted that Leeds should contract-out the management of the education services. Hence the formation of Education Leeds.
Education Leeds had five board members - 2 council officers, a chairman and two representatives of a private company, Capita.
Since the inception of Education Leeds it has overseen a radical overhaul of the city's education system. Many schools have closed to reduce the number of vacant places which allowed the organisation millions of pounds to rebuild other schools and give provision for other items such as facilities for special needs kids.
A recent government report graded the education system in Leeds a Grade 3 - which is highly satisfactory.
This has prompted Education Leeds to sever links with the private company and go it alone. Education Leeds will continue as a separate arm of the council and will bring in expertise when required.

Astoria Ballroom
It's been a landmark on Roundhay Road since 1929 but now its days are numbered.
The Astoria Ballroom building has been earmarked for demolition by a developer who wishes to build high quality apartments "for the discerning buyer".
The building is in a poor state of repair so it would be cheaper to get down to ground level and build from new.
The Astoria, once one of the city's top entertainment venues was last used as a ballroom in 1992 when it became a showroom for the Amrik Electronics company. Five years ago the Fitness 2000 company took the place over as a gym.
If the planning application is successful the redevelopment will be complete in about 15 months.

Opera Party in the Park
The month started with queues around the Town Hall when free 120,000 tickets went up for grabs to attend the pop Party in the Park event and the Opera in the Park, both at Temple Newsam on July 16th for the opera and the pop event the following day.
These city-funded events are always incredibly popular with 40,000 opera buffs turning out - this year it's Katherine Jenkins headlining alongside the Leeds Philharmonic Chorus and the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra. Pop fans get McFly, Girls Aloud and Natasha Bedingfield.

Transport
Leeds councillors are on the defensive after Transport Minister Alistair Darling unveiled his proposals to tackle traffic congestion by charging motorists for every mile they travel.
For many months now the minister has been dragging his feet over the funding of the Leeds light-rail Supertram scheme. Now , councillors believe they now why.
As part of his proposals Darling says he needs a specific area to pilot the scheme - the Department of Transport has revealed that Leeds is a likely candidate.
So councillors are waiting for the offer they can't refuse - accept the pilot scheme or you don't get the Supertram funds.
This dastardly plan seems to have been in the planning for some years. In 2003 the DoT installed equipment on some Leeds roads that is capable of being used in road-charging schemes. At the time it was insisted that the items being fitted were for viability testing purposes only and certainly not for any toll scheme.

The figures suggested for the road tolls are £1.34 for using a vehicle on a busy road at peak time down to a few pence for mountain passes at three in the morning. Most costs will be between the two extremes.
Using the A64 road on a public holiday, at the peak rate, to get to the east coast, Scarborough, Whitby, &c could cost £180. At that rate east coast resorts would soon be history.
A commuter run from north Leeds to the city centre at a low 25 pence per mile would add £15 per week to your motoring costs. Many commuters travel in to Leeds from Harrogate, York and Halifax - a much more costly proposition. The figures are only suggested at the moment.

The Cross Gates shopping centre has a problem. It is within one minute walk from Cross Gates railway station. The problem is that many motorists are parking in the shopping centre car park and getting the train into the city centre thus avoiding the sky high parking costs in the centre of Leeds.
Whenever I hear the word "management" I get an uneasy feeling.
The management at the shopping centre have come up with some figures; most shoppers spend less than three hours in the centre. So management have spent £200,000 on a new car parking system.
The prices have sky-rocketed - £6.50 for between 4 and 9 hours up to 12 hours or more costing a mere £50.
No problems so far. The railway station has its own car park, albeit quite small, and rail commuters shouldn't be using the shopping centre anyway.
Management, of course, get paid lots of money to manage whatever they manage efficiently so it's a bit of a mystery how they came to forget the part time workers. For not much money they work 5-6 hours per day. One part-time member of staff said she earned £300 per month so a £6.50 per day parking fee would be unacceptable. Several of the staff have already handed in their notices to quit.
The staff have tried to speak to the management who have declined to listen to any complaints.

One of the ministers charged with considering Leeds's revised bid for the Supertram has warned that light-rail systems are not the answer to every city's problems. Sounds like a warning.
He said: "This government supports light rail in the right place, at the right time and at the right price."
"If we are forced to make a tough decision on funding for a tram scheme, it does not mean we are biased against trams. It means we are biased against transport schemes that rocket in price."
A decision on the Leeds Supertram is needed urgently as the transport bosses need to purchase land along the route of the system and legally the deadline for that expires in July.

Leeds Girls' High School
The historic school on Headingley Lane is proposing to sell most of the site to fund a major rebuilding scheme at the Leeds Grammar School Alwoodley site in north Leeds. The proposals are counter to the plans to keep the two sites open when they officially merge in 2007.
Leeds Grammar School began life in the 1550s and Leeds Girls' High in 1876. LGS gave up the wonderful site on Clarendon Road enabling the grand premises in Alwoodley to be built.
The sprawling LGH site has tennis courts, swimming pool, a music and drama centre and extensive lawns - all within a ten minute walk of the city centre.
The Alwoodley site will get new buildings to house the extra pupils and the existing facilities extended.
An underpass is planned at the junction with the A61 (Harrogate Road).
Not surprisingly the residents in Headingley are a little worried about what is going to replace the school. Only Ford House, a Listed building, is safe from the bulldozers.
Local councillors have joined the call for some of the green space to be handed over to the community and that any plans for high-density housing, or yet another bar-restaurant complex be dismissed out of hand.

Fun Days
The Hunslet Community Gala took place with lots of stalls and entertainment. On the playing fields of St Mary's School local groups thrilled the crowds. The Keldon School of Dance, the Beeston Broncos Junior rugby club, KICK, the kickboxing and karate group and the Lynbar Majorettes put on some great demonstrations. The day was started and closed by the band of the Leeds Air Cadet Corps.
More than 2000 turned out in the glorious sunshine (bit hot for me) for the Pulse Race held at Roundhay Park. Various runs were available depending on age and abilities and every runner received a medal.
The event is now in its third year of fund raising for the British Heart Foundation Charity.

Odds On
Earlier this year plans for a mega-casino in Leeds seemed doomed when the government decided to limit the initial number to just one, at that would have been in Blackpool. Now with a change in government policy - well the wind did change - there may be four mega-casinos allowed over the country so Leeds may be in the running - unless Alistair Darling has anything to do with it!

Mount St Mary's Primary School
Rotating Council Leader Mark Harris has hinted that the council may be looking to take the school into Local Education Authority control.
Councillor Harris said: "Sometimes, when you look at a review, notwithstanding the distress for staff, children and families, it is patently obvious which course of action has to be taken. That is not the case here."
The request by the Diocese of Leeds to close the Beacon status school has prompted a major review of primary school provision in the Richmond Hill area.
A decision on the future of the school by the council's executive board may be released as early as July.

Temple Mill
SJS Property Management, a London-based company wants to invest £180 million to transform the historic Temple Mill in Holbeck into a "cultural retail" centre and create 3000 jobs.
"Cultural retail" is the latest buzzphrase indicating a range of shops with bits of art dotted about the place - I may have left a little of the romance out of it but that's what it essentially is.
Temple Mill is a Grade 1 listed building. A former flax mill built in the late 1830s it was based on the Temple of Horus at Edfu - a craze for everything Egyptian swept Europe in the first half of the 19th century. John Marshall, the flax spinner, had grass installed on the roof to provide natural insulation and sheep to keep it trimmed.
SJS intend to grass the roof again. They're probably not too keen on having sheep back - the roof has lots of glass windows to let in light. People get upset when whacked by falling sheep.
This development would be close to the Holbeck Urban Village development and would echo that development with cafes, high class shops, restaurants, offices, &c, &c with a mixture of art, sculpture and event space thrown in.

Sound of the City
New York artist Bill Fontana has set up a sound sculpture in Neville Street beside the railway station.
This man has worked all over the world setting up his "installations" so we should all go along to appreciate it.
What he's done is to turn the Dark Arches into an acoustic instrument transmitting the noise of the River Aire and the railway station out to the people on Neville Street. Won't they be pleased?
The noise is produced using hydrophones - a whatsit for listening to underwater energy - and microphones and accelerometers - another whatsit used to listen to acceleration in material, they're attached to the buffers at the ends of tracks in the station.
His reason was..." The urban and natural environment is a living source of musical information. I was inspired in Leeds by the River Aire which flows through the Dark Arches and has had a defining impact on the development of the city."
The £18,000 work will be alarming pedestrians for two months.

Sharp House Lane
Residents on Sharp House Lane, on the edge of Middleton are concerned about a proposed development that would put over 1200 houses on their doorstep.
A developer already has planning permission to construct 1200 houses but is now applying for permission to build a further 120. The land has been earmarked for housing since the 1950s.
Ginger, a campaign group formed by the residents has concerns on the access roads and property values.
There appears to be only one access road and as one resident claimed - by law you have to tell prospective purchasers of your property if there are any negatives associated in buying the property so plans to build that many houses is damaging house sales.
Outline plans cans be seen at Middleton Library.

Mental Health Dangers
A Private Finance Initiative (PFI) involves private companies, or groups of companies, being contracted to design and build, and in some cases run, a public project. The contractor, usually a local council, then pays the company a sum over several years. Leeds has benefitted from numerous PFIs over the years but many people that public services should not be in private hands who are in the profit business.

Three mental health units have been acquired by the Leeds Mental Health Trust - the Becklin Centre at St James's Hospital, The Mount at the Leeds general Infirmary and the Newsam Centre at Seacroft Hospital - but there may be trouble ahead.
A leaked report has shown that there are serious faults with fire safety at all three and that the Health Trust has known about them for a considerable time but chose to suppress the information.
A fire safety inspector has visited the buildings and found; "The design of the premises falls far short of the standards expected... for those with mental illness or learning difficulties" - several design issues causing concern include the provision for patient observation. A major risk in any mental health unit was patients setting fire to things.
Further enquiries reveal that the design of the building caused major problems.
Curving corridors may look nice at the design stage but they're not very good when you want to keep an eye on somebody, or when the staff need to evacuate the place quickly.
The units have been built without proper fire protection materials in the walls and floors.
Patients have been given mattresses with poor fire retardant properties. Patients are allowed to smoke in their rooms.
In the event of a fire staff had been instructed to leave the patients in their rooms for up to half an hour. The assumption being that the rooms were fire resistant. In reality the walls would not have restricted a fire for very long at all, certainly not 30 minutes.
The Accent Group of Shipley, formerly Bradford and Northern Housing Association, which built the centres, said that it had not seen the full report so did not wish to comment. Lawyer-speak.
An enquiry is underway.

Apply Now!
There are 3000 licensees of pubs, clubs, &c in Leeds and they have until August 6th to apply to convert their existing licence to the new-style permits required under the Licensing Act. So far a mere 190 have applied. Those that fail to apply will lose their licence on November 24th when the new law comes into force.
The new permits affects anyone who sells alcohol, provides entertainment, has a registered club or a take-away serving hot food after 11pm. That includes home deliveries.
If a licensee carries on trading without the new permit it's a £20,000 fine and 6 months in prison if they carry on trading.
Why doesn't draconian stuff like this apply to burglars and the other lowlife?

A Woman Moved ...
In 2002 the Labour-run council spent £2.5 million on refurbishing City Square. Part of that project included installing a fountain. The fountain features several columns of water that spring up from the pavement and, when the thing has been working, has proved a popular attraction. The design automatically drops the columns in windy weather so that people don't get a soaking.
With hot weather possible in the next few weeks an argument has arisen as to why the fountain doesn't work properly.
Councillor Carter accused the Labour councillors of taking responsibility for maintaining the fountain from the council's Learning and Leisure department but then not giving the job to somebody else.
The fountain has suffered from electrical faults (not a good thing with electricity) from the start. These problems are yet to be rectified.
Last year the jets failed to work for most of the summer. The then Labour-run council claimed it was due to a faulty valve. Labour councillor Liz Minkin said that they were waiting for the valve just before the local elections and that if the valve was still awaited then it was the fault of the current council.
How long has the Belgian Manneken Pis been doing his thing?

Plan for Cemetery is Buried (sorry)
The controversial plan to site a cemetery at Thorner has been shelved.
The council is to seek alternative options including small community-based cemeteries.
It took seven years to get the necessary permissions to create the cemetery at Thorner and already the council has spent £200,000 on the A64 - Thorner Lane junction. A massive overspend on a road junction there, unless you have several corteges arriving daily.
Harehills cemetery was looking likely to be full by the summer of this year so hopefully the council has a plan in mind.

One Man Went to Mow......
Before he was overthrown the Red Wizard had created a spell to rid the land of the dangerous lifeform that was spreading throughout the land. Now, with the Red Wizard gone the lifeform was on the rise and the people were becoming concerned. The Blue Wizard looked to the Yellow Wizard who shrugged his shoulders and said that he'd thought the Blue Wizard was dealing with the matter. They both turned and looked at the Green Cat who crept under the table. The lifeform began blocking out the light.

This tale has been dominating the press for most of the month with everybody getting a little hot under the collar. The grass, the grass owned by Leeds City Council anyway, has not been cut. That's it.
Like most public services the contract for grass-cutting was awarded to a private company - in this instance to Glendale Ground Maintenance - but it was awarded later than anticipated. Then we had some warm, wet weather that gave the grass ideal growing conditions.
Complaints flooded in........
The people of Armley said that only circles around the bottom of trees had been mown with the grass verges being ignored.
Otley councillors said grassed areas resembled a jungle (need to get out more I think)
Adel residents claimed a van had turned up in the area with a group of young men with push-along lawnmowers. They cut the grass, made a mess, and lopped off a few flower heads before leaving.
Back in Armley a pensioner said she would stop paying her council tax until something was done.
Iris Smith, 82 years, was joined by local MP John Battle and they went down on their knees with shears and started snipping at the grass. Mr Battle said that GGM had no experience of cutting grass and lacked the expertise and tools.
Those from Swillington said it they were considering pulling out of the City in Bloom competition because the grass overshadowed their efforts.
Leeds councillors became alarmed when a list showing areas earmarked for mowing included Sicklinghall. Our globe-trotting councillors know that Sicklinghall is in North Yorkshire so why were we paying for that. They all sat down again when told that Wetherby has a Sicklinghall Road.
Rotating Council Leader Mark Harris issued an apology in the press.
Everybody complained that the cut grass looked like a bad hair do, and the cut grass was not being collected.
The old folk living in Burmantofts on Beckett Street were moaning. They usually sit out on the grassed area in warm weather and idle their time watching the ambulances hurry by to nearby St James's Hospital. The long grass had denied them this pleasure. Erstwhile council leader Keith Wakefield ambled into the fray demanding to know why these people pay their taxes and have simple pleasures denied them. Kathleen Spencer said she had lived there for 37 years.
Councillor Steve Smith, executive for City Services, apologised in the press.
Councillor Keith Wakefield, Labour, ambled into the council chamber and demanded that some of the ruling Tory-Liberal-Green councillors should resign.
Meanwhile, over at Wetherby they got the prisoners out of nearby Wealstun prison to help cut the grass.
So after the burglary the prison authorities made a search and recovered the haul of jewellery.
Councillor Wakefield got his face in the papers with a photograph showing the councillor ambling by some grass that came up to his chin - he was stooping if you looked carefully.
Motorists complained that they couldn't see oncoming cars when crossing the central reservations.
Rotating Council Leader Andrew Carter issued an apology in the press.
The White Rose Shopping Centre wondered what all the fuss was about. The roundabout outside the centre has beautifully trimmed grass. The large roundabout has become a haven for a colony of rabbits that take care of any grass that needs mowing. A councillor complained that the rabbits only deal with the grass but they don't eat the weeds.........

Leodis New News May 2005

Gipton Floods
The month arrived with heavy rain and with it some flash floods. Streets were flooded under two inches
of rain in just two hours. The worst hit areas were Beeston, Morley, Hunslet and Gipton.
Those living alongside the Wyke Beck in Gipton suffered again as the beck overflowed leaving many
homes and the nearby St Nicholas Primary School under 30 inches of water.
This area was flooded in a similar fashion in August of last year. That time the cause was attributed
to supermarket trolleys and fly tipping blocking the watercourses. Residents weren't happy with that
explanation last year and are in no mood to accept excuses this year. The school is facing a £54,000
bill for the damage caused last year.
Yorkshire Water and Leeds City Council are working together to investigate the cause of this years
flooding and, no doubt, discussing damage limitation.
As the month went on people started to demand the publication of a YW report on the flooding in Wykebeck
Valley Road. YW said that it was always the company's intention to release the full report on completion.
When YW released the report it admitted that the storm system it had recently installed had made matters
worse. A YW spokesman said that the company was doing all it could to get things back to normal and that
work was underway to find a solution to the problem. When asked about compensation for the victims he
said, "The situation is complex and includes a number of factors.... blah blah ad nauseum. It's not complex
at all, YW screwed up and think weasel words will get them out of trouble.
The month finished with residents seeking the help of Mary Dhonau, experienced in taking on ineffective water companies.

http://www.floodforum.org.uk/

To add to Yorkshire Water's woes is John Kay, a terminally ill civil engineer who is suing YW for the company's alleged neglect in exposing him to deadly asbestos.
Mr Kay was a raw engineering recruit with YW in the late 1980s when he was overseeing work at the
Eccup Water Treatment Plant in north Leeds.
He was on hand as workers drilled through old concrete, now believed to have contained asbestos, to lay
power lines. His abiding memory is of the noise and dust. This was twenty years after legislation was
introduced regarding the use of asbestos. Mr Kay claims that during his time at the company he was never given guidance or appropriate safety equipment. To put it bluntly, Mr Kay does not expect to see the result of his civil action, but he hopes his two young sons will.
A YW spokeswoman said, "A claim has been lodged and is receiving consideration by ourselves and our insurers."
YW assured its shareholders that profits would not be harmed.

The Harewood Quarter
The car park at the Side of Leeds City Markets and at the rear of Millgarth police station has been an
eyesore for many years. Once the home of market stalls and the "Madhouse" Market Tavern the area
has been neglected for several years. Now a new look is on the horizon with the department store
John Lewis set to form part of a £500 million development on the site.
Likely to be known as the Harewood Quarter - the small street from George Street to Eastgate is named
Harewood Street - the 1,000,000 square feet will include 500 apartments, leisure facilities and 2,500
parking spaces.
The John Lewis store is expected to open sometime in 2010 and will create 900 direct jobs with service
industries also gaining.

Shoppers are to be asked their views on a multi-million pound plan to renovate the Leeds Markets. Council bosses are looking for private finance to improve facilities and to redevelop the temporary trading halls that were erected to replace those destroyed by the fire of thirty years ago. Doesn't time fly?
The Leeds Markets gets about 200,000 visitors each week and is one of the finest markets in the country.
In the early 1990s the council worked with Norwich Union to renovate the Edwardian part of the markets that
front onto Vicar lane. Once the Victorian sections are developed and the Madhouse development completed the focus of Leeds shopping may shift away from Briggate.

Horsforth at War
They say everybody has a story to tell and a new book about Horsforth certainly confirms the old adage.
Entitled Horsforth at War the book is published to commemorate the 60th anniversary of VE day and was
commissioned by the Town Council.
Local historian Mark Saville, the man responsible for those fascinating local history videos, spoke to 76
people who each had a story worth hearing.
One Horsforth family was informed that a soldier of theirs had been killed. Later it emerged that he was a
prisoner of war. The family heard he was still alive but were then informed that he'd died in the camp.
He hadn't, it was another soldier, a New Zealander, with the same name who had died.
The Horsforth family got a bit of a shock when he turned up on the doorstep after the war.
There are many other stories in the book, some not with happy endings, and it is available from the website below, as are those great videos.

www.yorkshireshop.co.uk

Leeds Pals
Next year sees the 90th anniversary of the Battle of the Somme. On the first day of the battle, July 1, 1916
20,000 British and French troops died with another 40,000 wounded. Four months later and a pathetically
small piece of muddy field went to the victors - as did 250,000 dead allied troops and even more Germans.
At the start of the war tens of thousands of young men from all over the country enlisted in the army.
They joined with friends, young men from neighbouring houses, the next street, the same town or village.
Each of these groupings became known as "Pals", the Leeds Pals, Bradford Pals, &c
When the long battle took place it is said that not one street in Leeds escaped losing someone.
The anniversary will be marked by a ceremony at the battlefield site with one musical instrument playing a
poignant note.
David Whithorn has been fascinated by the First World War for most of his life. He is a member of the Great War Society and has written books on the subject.
Whilst travelling to the Lake District, in north-western England, David stopped for a break in the town of Settle.
In an antique shop he noticed a bugle with an inscription concerning the Leeds Pals and the name of Alderman J. Tetley. He waited an hour for the shop to open and bought the bugle.
Alderman Tetley was on the recruitment committee which established the Leeds Pals battalion and it was he that donated the bugle to the battalion.
The bugle will be used to play The Last Post by a bugler dressed in the period uniform. It is believed to be the first time the bugle has sounded in France since the end of the conflict.

http://www.leedspals.co.uk/

My Mate
Now we know where Genghis Khan got his energy from...possibly.
The new president of Mongolia, Nambaryn Enkhbayar, was recently asked about his time at Leeds University in the 1980s.
He said that the stay opened his eyes to the possibilities of life outside his homeland and praised the university's library and the British weather! He also admitted, with a chuckle, that Leeds was the city where he discovered Marmite (a grown up version of Vegemite ;o)).
Enkhbayar was based at the School of English and translated stories from Charles Dickens, Aldous Huxley and Rudyard Kipling into Mongolian. He then returned home to Mongolia and in the period of Glasnost the one-party state became a democracy. Two years later got elected to the parliament and in 2000 he became prime minister.
During his term as prime minister he visited London on a diplomatic trip, but took time out for a quick trip to Leeds for sentimental purposes.

http://www.marmite.com/

All Change at the Top
The Rainbow alliance now running Leeds - Conservative, Liberal democrat, Green - has rotated the council leadership.
Now Lib-Dem Councillor Mark Harris is in the top seat of one of the country's largest local authorities.
He'll not have time to get the seat formed to his curvature as the top spot rotates again in six months time. Then it will revert to Tory Andrew Carter again - the Greens are there just to make the numbers up.
As the grouping is called the Rainbow Alliance some cruel folk have taken to calling the three leaders Bungle, Zippy and George after the three characters in the children's TV show Rainbow.

Smile!
It's always difficult to prove that prevention is working which is one reason why providing policemen on foot receives scant support from those responsible for hitting targets.
The West Yorkshire Casualty Reduction Partnership is one organisation well known for its ability to manipulate figures to an advantage.
Despite a recent report by Liverpool University concluding that the case for speed cameras was exaggerated the WYCRP intends to spend more than £300,000 on more cameras to litter the city.
Speed humps, chicanes and road narrowing are not popular options - presumably as they do not raise revenue. Many drivers in the city would possibly accept the cameras if they didn't appear to be a revenue raising scam. None of the money taken in fines is to be spent on repairing the dismal state of many roads in Leeds.

Coming Home
St Paul's Street, in the city centre, has been, seemingly forever, the centre for many law firms and staid commercial enterprises. This wasn't always the case as many of the buildings on St Paul's Street were homes to Victorian merchants.
Now it seems some of the buildings in this legal quarter may be reverting back to domestic use.
A developer has taken 59 St Paul's Street and returned the building to a 'family home'.
For much of it's life the building was home to a firm of solicitors and the developers have taken great pains to strip out the rabbit-warren of offices and corridors that have evolved over the years whilst retaining many of the period features.
Hand-built double-glazed sash windows have been installed and the slate roof has been refurbished.
As well as five bedrooms, breakfast kitchen, reception room, bathroom, cloakroom, utility room, store area and cellar area the house has patio doors leading to a rear walled garden.
£800,000 if you want it.

House Decorating
Staff at Temple Newsam House have been busy.
Various rooms in the stately home have been given a make-over to take them back to how they would have looked in the 19th century. Now the South Wing has been opened to the public who can see first hand what a good job the curators have done.
The rooms include the State Bedroom, the Prince's Room, the South Bedroom, the State Dressing Room
and Lady William Gordon's Room.
The South Bedroom has been restored to how it looked when the Duke and Duchess of York visited in 1894. The wallpaper has been reproduced from preserved fragments and the original bed has been brought back.
Curator Wells-Cole explained that the bed had left the house in 1904 but that he had managed to buy it back from a dealer in Paris in 1996.
Temple Newsam House is regarded as one of the finest country houses in England. It is also famous for being the birthplace of Lord Darnley, husband of Mary, Queen of Scots.
The £70,000 funding for the recent renovations came from the interest on an insurance payout. Twenty gold snuff boxes were stolen nearly 25 years ago and never recovered.

http://www.leeds.gov.uk/templenewsam/

Take Heart
Another little bit of greenery has appeared in the city centre though, like the walled garden on St Paul's Street, you'd be hard pressed to see it. This little green oasis is on the rooftop of the Jubilee Wing at the Leeds General Infirmary.
The garden will allow patients, staff and relatives a break from the wards for a breath of fresh air and panoramic views across the city.
The garden was given a cheery new look with a £20,000 pot, of money not a plant pot!, by the Take Heart charity.

Barwick's Pole
For a pagan festival it has done well to survive into the 21st century.
The maypole at Barwick-in-Elmet has not been erected for some six years now following a visit by the Health and Safety police who pronounced the practice of hoisting a large wooden shaft into an erect position not permissible.
Now with the help of mechanical lifting gear the offspring of the village can dance around the pole whilst others tend to their own little nut trees. Some say the maypole is part of ancient fertility rites. Others may disagree.

72-years old Alan King is pleased to see his pole rise. The local pensioner was tasked with painting the 86-feet pole.
"It was harder than I expected" said Alan. He reckons he has spent 170 hours on planing, sanding and then painting it. The inclement weather didn't help but he says his rode looks nice now in red and blue paint.
The pole was raised at 11am followed by a parade led by May Queen, 13-years old Madelaine Cornforth riding on a decorated farm cart pulled by a tractor.
Later in the afternoon garlands were raised on the big pole and a volunteer shinned up to spin the weather vane at the top.

Learning Lessons
The education system in Leeds seems to be in turmoil.
Education Leeds has just announced that six primary schools are earmarked for closure - Miles Hill, Potternewton, Beckett Park, Headingley, St Michael's CoE and Fir Tree - as part of the program to slash thousands of surplus classroom places in response to falling birth rates.
The six schools are the latest in a long line of closures to cut back on 9,000 empty classroom seats which costs the taxpayer millions of pounds each year.
In response to the announcement parents are staging protests.
Angry parents staged a rooftop protest at Miles Hill Primary in Meanwood and parents from nearby Potternewton took to the street with banners seeking wider support.
Meanwhile, the Diocese of Leeds continues to win friends and influence people.
With its attempts to close Richmond Hill Primary School, and use the Government's promised £1.6 million for other purposes, stymied for the time being it has now turned its sights on St Gregory's Catholic Primary School in Swarcliffe.
As it is a legal requirement that the schools board of governors recommend the closure of a school the Diocese informed St Gregory's board that should it vote not to support the school's closure then a new board would be appointed who would vote appropriately.
The Diocese declined to comment on the matter.

High Tea
A proposed high-rise development on the former Fletcher car sales site on Sweet Street may have a restaurant on the top.
What would be the tallest building in the city would house 700 flats, a casino, bars, shops and a hotel. Water features and public art set in a major public square and smaller courtyards are also included. The restaurant overlooking the whole development would give spectacular views of the city and the forest of crane towers that seem to be a perpetual feature of the skyline.
One objector to the scheme is Transco - the company responsible for the gas pipe network - which says that with high-pressure gas pipes near to the site of the development residents in the development could be at risk if the pipe was damaged.
Oddly, Transco have not raised objections during previous decades when thousands of people worked close to the pipeline.
The Planning committee approved the scheme and suggested Transco should liaise with the Health and Safety Executive if they still had reservations.

"How Now, Horatio? You Tremble and Look Pale."
Every theatre worthy of the name should have a ghost or two. The management at one of Leeds's most historic theatres decided to adopt a scientific approach to see if the Leeds Grand Theatre has and spirits. The organiser of the investigation was Margaret Ashbee, the theatre's marketing manager, which my give an insight into what the eventual aim was.
The local ghostbusters were called in - otherwise known as the Yorkshire Psychic Investigators - who issued some rules to the staff including not to wear aftershave or scent. This was so that the YSI's expert on smells would not be distracted.
Plans were made in tight secrecy so as not to attract pranksters and the all-night vigil took place.
YPI founder Bridget Relton said that three locations were of particular interest - the upper circle, the fly room and the boardroom.
A presence in the upper circle was a man in his early twenties, possibly from the early 20th century, wearing black trousers, a white shirt and a waistcoat. She became aware of him when he ran through the wall behind her, along the back of the seats then out through the door. The fly room had a man who had lost the use of one of his hands when scenery fell on him - possibly in the late 1940s. The boardroom was very hot as if someone had turned a radiator up to full blast for hours on end. Outside in the corridor there were patches of intense cold.
A full report is available on YPI's website........

http://www.yorkshirepsychicinvestigators.co.uk/

Briggate Nearly Complete
Once the busiest street in the city centre Briggate is no longer a thoroughfare choked by traffic but an oasis for shoppers.
A £4 million scheme to pedestrianise the street has resulted in new paving, seats for busy shoppers to rest their weary feet and even some greenery in giant plant pots to admire.
Phase Two is set to start in August and should finish in the Spring of next year with a short break in the middle to take account of the busy Christmas period. This phase will see lampposts removed from King Edward Street and replaced by wall lights thus reducing street clutter.
Since Briggate was closed to traffic in 1997 it has been estimated that over £70 million has been invested in the street by the private sector.

Middleton Railway
Operating the world's oldest commercial railway is an expensive business so when you get £750,000 to help your cause it's a big help.
The cash, from the Lottery Heritage Fund, is to be used to build a cafe, shop, gallery, ticket office classroom and a main hall where some of the railway's steam engines can be displayed.
Unfortunately the cash doesn't cover the preparatory work and key infrastructure changes required so members of the railway are knuckling down and doing it themselves. Tasks include replacing sleepers, repositioning some of the track and demolishing old platforms.
Works starts later in the summer on the new building with the volunteers hoping to have the railway opened in time for the Santa Specials which generate much needed income.
The railway was built in 1758 and initially used horse-drawn carriages. The volunteers specialise in saving and restoring steam engines made in Leeds.
World famous names like Hudswell Clarke, Greenwood Batley, John Fowler and, perhaps the most famous of all, the Hunslet Engine Company feature at the railway. These companies made Leeds the world centre for engine production and the volunteers will now be able to tell that story much more effectively.

Smeaton's Tower
At the same time as the Middleton Railway was opening a son of Leeds was down in Plymouth defying Mother Nature and his critics.
John Smeaton, from Austhorpe, was a civil engineer, was busy inventing quick drying cement, special cranes for lifting huge blocks of stone from ships at sea whilst coping with his labourers being press-ganged.
All this trouble was taken to build the world's first stone lighthouse out at sea.
Doubters and gainsayers, as ever, were everywhere but above them all stood the Eddystone Lighthouse - 70ft tall and a weight of 1,000 tonnes - for 120 years.
It was the rock that the tower was built on that gave in first so the Plymouth folk dismantled the lighthouse and rebuilt it on the hill known as Plymouth Hoe - where Sir Francis Drake played his famous game of bowls.
A book has been published - Smeaton's Tower by Christopher Severn telling the fascinating story of the tower.
Contact Seafarer Books for further details.
If you're stout of leg then try and visit the lighthouse in Plymouth. You can go to the top of it for spectacular views of Plymouth Sound and Drake's Island.

http://www.seafarerbooks.com/

Please Press Your Star Key Twice
It used to be the case that if you needed to contact a council department you simply referred to the website or the telephone directory. There you would find the telephone number of the department you required. Simple.
The council are now in the early stages of creating a multi-million pound call-answering centre in Grace Street, near to the International Pool.
Staff who are currently working at contact centres in Bramley, Seacroft, Cross Green and Middleton will transfer to the city centre premises - no doubt adding to the swarm of traffic heading for the city centre on a morning.
Critics say the centre should be built in a deprived area of Leeds thus helping the local economy and giving people jobs.
A suggestion was that the former Harehills Middle School, which has a For Sale notice on it, would be suitable for conversion but "Rotating Head" Councillor Harris said it had been considered but had proved too small. One wonders just how big a building they need if that rather large building is too small. Besides, the deal has already been signed with the property developer.
Soon you will only need to ring a "Golden Number" and be able to speak to a human, eventually, who will put you through after you've listened to Vivaldi, Spring, of course, interminably. And then you'll find that they've moved the whole operation to Bombay.

It's About My Bin......
Keith Firminger is a civil servant who lives in Sheffield with his wife. One of his pastimes is compiling fixtures and results for the local football league. His answer-phone took many messages to help Keith do his stuff.
Up the road in Leeds meanwhile steps were afoot to make Keith's life somewhat uncomfortable.
A leaflet was sent to 320,000 households in Leeds giving the number of the rubbish bin complaints hotline.
Yes, you're with it, it was Keith's home phone number.
He thought it was amusing - at first - but his phone was ringing non-stop, his answer-phone was clogged
with rubbish calls and some people are not too polite when their bin is overflowing!
Leeds Council offered to pay for him to have his number changed but he's had the number for thirty years and who's going to let all the league teams know?
Keith shouldn't have to suffer too long. The new number for the Bins hotline is 0113 3984760.
Imagine, your phone number mistaken for a council hotline. The fun, the mischief......