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Yorkshire Day I don’t know when (or if) anyone reads these ramblings but if it is still July it will soon be ‘Yorkshire Day’ and if it is already August it has just been ‘Yorkshire Day’. There have been/are to be various events in Alwoodley to mark the day and I think they will all raise money for charities. Well done, thank you - much appreciated. But who decided that we are to have a Yorkshire Day? I have a theory, which I will explain later. I don’t remember Yorkshire Day when I was at school. It’s not a Bank Holiday when everyone from Sheffield to Middlesbrough can have a day off but in Chesterfield and Hartlepool everyone keeps working. It seems to have crept in informally and it is impossible to be against it. My doubts about it are perhaps because I was born and brought up in East Yorkshire, and I have only spent 40 years in West Yorkshire. The old East Riding used to have an inferiority complex about the larger, busier, more prosperous, West Riding and slightly resented all the images of ‘Yorkshire’ being about sheep, tight-fisted farmers, the Dales and dark satanic mills. There was Hull, which was fish, and that was all for the East Riding. If you haven’t seen Spurn Point at low tide, and about 99% of people in Leeds haven’t, there is a bit of your education missing. It is the part of the county that is least changed since the Angles and Saxons sailed up the Humber over a thousand years ago and if you have never been there, you don’t really know all of Yorkshire. I shall have to resign from the Council now for enthusing about another part of Yorkshire but the county is more than the Settle-Carlisle railway (which is wonderful and I went on it last month) and the Dalesman. There is an article to be written one day about other areas’ impressions of Yorkshire. That’s if they have one. If you read local newspapers for anywhere else or look at television programmes when you are away from home, you will be amazed at their parochialism and lack of interest in important subjects. I was in Scotland recently and the television news programmes seemed to deliberately ignore news about Leeds and York. They rambled on about events in Glasgow and Kirkintilloch, never mentioning the Leeds Arena and the improved parking arrangements at the Grammar School. It’s worse in the South of England. I once went to as meeting in Farnham, Surrey and met a lady who seemed to think I had a northern accent (This is rubbish – I do not have any accent at all) When I said I lived in Leeds, she said. ‘Oh, yes that’s in the north, isn’t it? My sister went to school with a girl from Barrow-in-Furness - do you think you might know her?’ That was in Farnham, Surrey, which is near Wales, I think. The theory about Yorkshire Day. I suspect it is encouraged by greetings card manufacturers. They soften us up for thirty years; then they start selling cards saying ’Happy Yorkshire Day’; then we find ourselves paying £2.49 for piece of card about A4 size with half a dozen words printed on it. Yorkshire people wouldn't fall for that, would they?
31st July 2009
I think I’ve written before about dangerous driving on Harrogate Road
There have been fatalities on our section of this road in the past but there are bumps and scrapes every month. Many of the problems occur as cars come out of the many side roads from the Primley Parks, Sandhills and Belvederes, where the view up and down the road is not good and traffic on the main road is often going too quickly. There is now to be a major set of improvements to the section from St John’s church to the Sandmoors. New road surfaces are to be put down to help prevent skidding and the road is to be slightly re-aligned to stop drivers coming off the roundabout too quickly. The gap between the carriageways at the entrance to Primley Park Lane will be closed and some proper arrangements, with waiting areas to stop turning cars blocking the outside lane, are to be built. This is apparently the most dangerous of the various junctions. As ever, this will take some months but when it is finished the road will be safer for both pedestrians and motorists. Anybody who is in Leeds on an infamous Saturday morning a month or so ago will remember the ‘rave’ (i.e. thundering, incessant ear-splitting music) that started (started!) at 1 a.m. in the morning and went on to 7 a.m. Several people have mentioned this to me and some of them said ‘I heard it but I didn’t think to complain about it’. The latest information I have is that the noise was coming from the west of King Lane up near the rugby club, and it must have been heard by a thousand people. Goodness knows how many were woken up by this selfish, anti-social behaviour but less than 1% seem to have complained. I know we’re supposed to be stoical, ‘mustn’t grumble’, English but if we don’t complain it will happen again. And again. And even louder. The police want to know about things like this; ring 0845 6060606 if it happens again. I know a small number of people rang that number at the time but they were given wrong information, suggesting that nothing could be done and it should be taken up with the Council. Not true. The police do want to know. I would also like to know but preferably in print and preferably the following morning. Finally, an offer you can’t refuse. Would you like to live longer? I read a report last week about the various characteristics of people who are still busy and healthy in middle and older age. One of the factors is that people like that are disproportionately volunteers for local charities. Getting involved in helping other people, particularly people in your own community, is now proved to add years to your life. I suppose we always known it but it is good to read about it being scientifically valid. Luckily for us in Leeds 17, there are half a dozen splendid groups where you join in with a minimum of fuss and no direct experience. One of the best is Moor Allerton Elderly Care, based on Cranmer Bank, (2660371) and if you’d prefer to be around rather longer than average, give Carol a ring and ask to help. 500 words and not a mention of Burnley Football Club. I am amazed at my own restraint.
22nd June 2009
MPs and Councillors
To start with, we all know the difference between councillors and MPs, don’t we? Councillors can usually be identified as those with their feet on the ground. Those who seem to live on a different planet from the rest of us are, I’d better be careful, not councillors. In the real world, I went to a meeting with people who are visually impaired or blind, to listen to their views on wheelie bins. The problem is not the taking out of their bins but the inconsiderate way in which too many of us leave ours in the middle of the pavement. I had never thought about it before but I was told that people with these difficulties would prefer us to leave our bins on the kerb edge, rather than near the hedge or the wall, if we can. They would also like us to take the bins off the pavement and back on to our own private land as soon as we can after they have been emptied. It doesn’t seem much to ask, and the people I met accepted that it would not be possible for everyone to do this, but I think we ought to try. We also ought to give large cheques to people who move their neighbours’ bins back off the pavement as well as their own when the lorry has moved on. Oh, the glamour of local government. You may have seen it in the evening paper but in case you haven’t I should report about the planning application received for a medical centre on the site of the old Moorhaven home, just off King Lane on Cranmer Gardens, next to Moortown Social Club. The application diagrams refer to thirteen GPs or nurses consulting rooms, a baby clinic and a pharmacy. Next door would be a 45-bed care home. The application does not say anything about which doctors will be working from the new centre or who will be operating the new care home or many other questions that will be of interest to local people. I will write more as things become clearer. What is in a first application and what, if anything, is eventually built can often vary substantially and there will be public discussion for a long time before a decision for or against the application is eventually made. My own opinion is that we certainly need something like this in Alwoodley and if the details are right I shall be supporting it. Change of gear. Thank you to the people who cleaned up the mess outside the Slaid Hill shops after some idiots trashed the telephone box there on a Friday night a few weeks ago. The vandals went to the trouble of carrying an enormous rock to the phone box and smashing it through the glass sides, creating millions of little pieces of glass on the grass verge and where shoppers’ cars park.. The Friends of Slaid Hill were on site the following day and cleaned up to make the place look as tidy and safe as it could be. BT came round four days later to do their bit. That will have to be all this month. The man has just come to clean out our moat and he has parked just where the grand piano delivery van will want to be. 21st May 2009
When I grow up I am going to be An Organiser of Seminars It seems to be the modern equivalent of money for old rope and the business grows every year. You pick a subject that people vaguely think they should be interested in but have never done anything about (‘Planning Law – the New Act’ or ‘Local Government and the Mechanisms of Consultation’) and send them a glossy leaflet saying it is essential they attend, all they have to do is fill in the form, the speakers are all experts and can we have £400 plus VAT please. I am sent three a week and I haven’t been to any of them for years. I would bet that nobody ever attends these events if they are paying for them out of their own pocket – if it was their own money they would not give it a minute’s thought. All of which is the wrong introduction to a reflection on a free seminar I went to in Chapel Allerton last week. It was about the ageing population of Leeds, but it made me stop and think. One of the speakers said that by 2070 at the latest we shall see the first 120 year–old in the history of the city. All the trends over the generations are pointing that way. I can remember when anyone reaching 100 was almost a national event but now it happens very week. The first person to make it to 120 will almost certainly be female and almost certainly live in the north of the city. The shocking point made by the speaker is that this lady is about 60 now. We probably know her. She will be a busy, outgoing non-smoking woman who had a job but is now retired. She will be in retirement for the whole of the second half of her life. So look around you and see if you can identify this lady now. One day she will be famous. Could it be you? And another thing:- I have seen a report from the Highways Department saying that that they have started work on designing a new ‘signalised’ pedestrian crossing across the Ring Road just east (the Shadwell Lane direction) of the Harrogate Road roundabout. This will help people from the Sandringhams and Ingledew Court go to the shops. No doubt it will take months before anyone can actually use it but if we don’t start we will never finish. I have had a few calls about skips on the road outside houses that are being improved or extended. I have checked and the rule is that anyone leaving a skip on the highways needs a licence and licences are only issued where there is no alternative place to put the skip. Sometimes these skips are a real hazard, particularly after dark, but there are regulations and if they are not being followed the Council should be told. Alwoodley councillors and Parish Councillors met officials of the Leisure Services department earlier this month to look at the play area on King Lane. We agreed that some improvements are overdue and necessary - it has been open twenty years – and we are going to be given some plans. Then there may be the small problem of finding the money but that should not be impossible. Again, this will take ages, but my wife has agreed to be the first to test the new slide.* *(Subject to confirmation) 23rd April 2009 Moor Allerton Library
Moor Allerton Library is the second busiest on the city, after the central one on the Headrow. It is over 20 years old and is going to have a substantial refurbishment. Between Christmas and Easter the service on the site will be much reduced. The library is not closing but there will be many fewer books available. The other libraries are ready for an increase in business – Meanwood, Chapel Allerton, Otley, for instance - and the number of books you can borrow at any one time will be increased over this ‘semi-closure’ time. The hours of opening will be the same and Libraries Department assure us that the improvements and modernisation will be worth the temporary disturbance. If it is a nuisance, don’t blame the library staff – the arrangements are nothing to do with them and we ought to be thanking them for putting up with even more inconvenience. Another group of council officials we must thank (this is not going to be a habit, I promise) are the people at the Council’s Northeast Area Management office. In their own time, a small team is going to plant a thousand bulbs around the Tree Tops centre on Shadwell Lane. This display will complement the flowers that Slaid Hill in Bloom have acquired for planting on Wike Ridge Lane. Their work is also free to all of us who drive past. Don’t let your local councillors take any credit – you know what they’re like when things are going well. Those of you who read the minutes of Harewood Parish Council will see that we have been taking an interest in the milestones in the parish. ‘Milestones’ includes all sorts of director indicators and there is a likelihood that others exist but are almost lost. If you look closely at the east side of Harrogate Road about three hundred yards south of the Wigton Lane traffic lights you will see an ancient stone that has been there for at least 150 years and which formed the boundary between the parishes of Alwoodley and Wigton. When it was put in place it was at the side of a country road, with no houses within half a mile but it was an important sign of where the responsibilities of one group of people ended and another's started. The milestone at the west end of Alwoodley Lane, at the T-junction with King Lane, is a magnificent example, which is probably even older than the one on Harrogate Road. I don’t know who keeps it tidy but thanks to whomever it is. If you know of any other such signs, hidden away by the decades, please let me know. So that is it for 2008. I have not had the space to fit in a few articles I knew would have been of great public interest. There was one about Burnley Football Club’s successes in Europe, which has to be postponed for the 38th year in succession. There was about what the BBC is going to put on television for viewers who are not enthralled by Stephen Fry, but there is not enough material for a paragraph. And there is one I had provisionally entitled ‘Does Leeds really need nine lap-dancing establishments? (the research, the research) Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year Peter Harrand 17th November 2008
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