Special free school consultation

Leeds City Council is currently consulting on a proposal to create a new generic special free school under a free school presumption process from September 2021, providing approximately 150 places for pupils with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) aged 4-16 years. It is proposed that the special school would be located at Rose Court, Buckingham Road, Headingley. However this is dependent upon Leeds City Council acquiring the Rose Court site from its current owner, the Grammar School at Leeds.

You can access the consultation documents here and complete an on-line survey which you can use to put forward views on the proposal.

Two community drop-in events will take place during the consultation period, which runs until 16 December 2019.  These events will be attended by council officers from the school place planning and highways teams and will be open to anyone with an interest in the proposal, offering an opportunity to ask questions and share views.

Details of the drop-in events are as follows:

3 December 2019, 5:00pm – 6:30pm: Rose Court, Buckingham Road, Headingley, LS6 1BP.

11 December 2019, 3:00pm – 5:00pm: Leeds City Centre Hub, Merrion House, Merrion Way, Leeds LS2 8PD

April 2019 Focus leaflet

We have been delivering our latest Focus leaflet in Headingley and Hyde Park. Our candidate, Penny Goodman, has lived in Headingley for twelve years and is campaigning for a better, cleaner local environment.

Penny says:

Dear resident,

On May 2nd our area will elect a Councillor and I’m the Lib Dem candidate for this election.

I live in Headingley, so I care passionately about local issues as they affect me too!

If I’m elected, I am determined to push for real action to tackle congestion. The Labour Council are spending millions of pounds ripping up Lawnswood roundabout and replacing it with an American-style intersection. I think the money would be more wisely invested sorting out our roads and improving public transport.

I want to see more street sweeping and greater enforcement action to tackle fly tipping and littering. I think it’s really important that our area
looks nice.

I’m a committed environmentalist, which is why I want to see more done by the Council to tackle climate change. I also want to see increased recycling services. The Lib Dems on Leeds City Council tried to get the Council to introduce kerbside food waste and glass recycling collection, like every major UK city, but Labour blocked it. I’ll continue to campaign for this to happen.

If I am elected I will be an independently-minded strong campaigning voice for our area. I hope you will support me on May 2nd.

Penny

Leeds City Council elections

Elections to Leeds city council are taking place on Thursday May 2nd. Today is the deadline for registering to vote in them, and if you haven’t done so already you can register to vote here.

Our candidate for Headingley and Hyde Park is Penny Goodman. Penny lives locally on Grove Lane, and is an academic who teaches Roman history at the University of Leeds.

Penny is calling for household glass recycling, action against fly-tipping and better transport across the city. She is a committed environmentalist, who wants to make it easy for everyone to help tackle climate change through easier recycling and better public transport.

She also strongly believes that Britain is better off remaining in the EU – not least because climate change is a shared problem which can best be tackled by working together.

Penny Goodman in Headingley

Leeds Liberal Democrats 2018 election manifesto

Today marks two weeks to the Leeds City Council elections for 2018. These are particularly important elections, because we are electing the whole of Leeds city council from scratch following changes to some ward boundaries. Across the city, everyone will have three votes each to select three new councillors for the ward they live in.

The Leeds Liberal Democrats have produced a fully-costed manifesto for this year’s elections, created through consultation with our local members, residents and city councillors. It is packed full of exciting and practical policies such as:

  • Citywide food waste and glass collection
  • Saving money and reducing pollution by powering city vehicles with biogas
  • A council-owned housing company building affordable homes for sale and rent
  • Addressing declining educational results amongst our most disadvantaged children
  • Employing dementia-supporting Admiral nurses

If you would like to read the manifesto in full, you can do that right here! Pictures of all the pages are included below, or you can download a pdf copy for yourself.

The Liberal Democrat candidates for Headingley and Hyde Park

The Liberal Democrat candidates for Headingley and Hyde Park have now been formally registered with the Town Hall, and we are proud to introduce the team:

Pictured from left to right are:

Penny Goodman, an academic who works at the University of Leeds. Penny has lived in Headingley for twelve years now, and has a long history of campaigning on behalf of the local community.

Murray Hawthorne, a student in the final year of an Arabic and Politics degree. Murray cares passionately about Human Rights issues, and is a proud internationalist.

Peter Andrews, a solar panel engineer who works for a local business. Peter has lived in Leeds all his life and is a long-standing member of the Headingley community.

All three are holding copies of the Leeds Liberal Democrats manifesto, which sets out what we are fighting for in this year’s Leeds City Council elections. If you would like to read the manifesto for yourself, you can download your own copy here.

Leeds Lib Dems 2018 manifesto launch

Yesterday evening, Leeds Lib Dems gathered together to launch our manifesto for the 2018 Leeds City Council elections.

The core principle of the manifesto, ‘Communities in Control’, reflects the Liberal Democrat belief that people should have real input into and control over the decisions which affect them in their local area. It sets out our vision for Leeds in six core areas: Environment, Housing, Transport, Adult Social Care, Children & Families, and the local Economy.

You can read what we have to offer in full here: Leeds Lib Dems Manifesto 2018

The manifesto has been put together with input from local residents, Leeds Liberal Democrat members and our serving councillors, and it is fully costed.

Leeds Liberal Democrat Council Group leader Stewart Golton presenting the manifesto at the launch

Leeds Labour council bin charges

As of today, the Labour-run Leeds city council will be charging residents for new or replacement black and brown bins. Anyone whose bin is stolen or damaged will need to pay the council £15.40 to secure a replacement. The new fees are listed on the council website, and the council’s briefing notice on the policy is shown below:

We can’t see how this policy will be anything other than a disaster in Headingley and Hyde Park. Here, many people live in terraced houses with no private space to keep their own bins. Instead, bins sit in bin-yards, or – more often – out on the pavement, so that it is often unclear which bin belongs to which property. Many local households also don’t have much disposable income, and would struggle to pay for a new bin. The result is bound to be that broken or stolen bins are not replaced, leading to a gradual fall in the number of usable bins available, disputes over who owns the remaining ones and rubbish all over the streets.

Once again, the Labour council has shown a total failure to understand the issues affecting rubbish collections in Headingley and Hyde Park, and our Labour councillors clearly haven’t done enough to speak up for the area and secure a system which will work for local people.

Council plan to charge for bulky waste collection

We understand that Leeds City Council will be introducing charging for the collection of ‘bulky waste’ from 9th May. The fee will be a flat rate of £20.

This is a significant concern in Headingley and Hyde Park, where sofas left in front gardens are already a persistent problem. That situation is hardly going to be improved by bringing an end to the free removal service.

The image below shows a list of Re-Use Providers in the city who will collect your unwanted furniture and ‘white goods’.

Taking your goods to the nearest Recycling Centre (Kirkstall or Meanwood Road) yourself will also continue to be free.

What a load of rubbish!

Residents in the Granbys have been dismayed to find their rubbish going completely uncollected at least twice this month. Granby Grove, which is a cul-de-sac, has been particularly badly affected. Locals report that bin crews are not driving their collection wagon up this road, or rolling the bins down to the end of it for emptying.

Uncollected rubbish on this scale poses a public health hazard, not to mention making the neighbourhood look ugly and uncared-for. Council officers responded to the problem in early February, but it has now happened again only two weeks later, suggesting a systemic problem with the way the collections are managed.

We would like to know why this has started happening, and what the root problems are. Is Leeds’ Labour-run council really competent to manage our bin services?

Planning permission refused on Victoria Road

We were very pleased to hear the news on Friday that an application to build a 262-bed student accommodation block on the Victoria Road playing field (formerly owned by Leeds Girls High School) has been refused. This application was totally inappropriate in an area which is already very densely populated, but has no public playing fields or exercise facilities, and where local schools don’t have enough space for their pupils to play team sports.

Greg Mulholland welcomed the news, and congratulated local residents’ groups on their opposition to the proposal.

Headingley campaigner Penny Goodman said:

“As a local resident I am so pleased to hear that this development will not be going ahead. I objected to this application when it was first submitted, and was surprised that an appeal was even allowed on the original decision, given how obviously unsuitable the plans were for our area.

I have been really impressed with the support shown by the local community for investing in this site to turn it into a proper sports facility. Now that this latest attempt to build on the playing field has been turned down, I hope and trust that Leeds City Council will support the local community in turning that vision into a reality.”

Victoria Road 1